Last January I made an unfashionable resolution: fewer trips, longer stays, and no itinerary with more than one plan per day. Twelve months later I had taken just four trips — and remembered all of them, which is more than I can say for the nine-trip year before. This is the full debrief.
The rules I set
Minimum five nights anywhere I bothered flying to. One neighborhood, learned properly, instead of three cities skimmed. Mornings belonged to the trip; afternoons belonged to me. And every journey needed one unscheduled day — a pressure valve for weather, whims, and the bakery someone mentions at dinner.
Twelve months, four trips, zero rushed itineraries.
Where it worked best
The coastal town in May: seven nights in the same apartment, same morning bakery, same evening bench. By day four the baker knew my order; by day six a neighbor invited us to a garden dinner. None of that happens on a two-night stop. Slowness isn’t the absence of plans — it is the presence of repetition, and repetition is where belonging starts.
Mid-trip council: what to repeat, what to skip, where to stay one more night.
The honest costs
Slow travel means missing things — the famous viewpoint two towns over, the restaurant everyone posts. I missed plenty. I also stopped performing my holidays for an audience and started enjoying them as the person actually there. A fair trade, executed gladly.
Steal this framework
- aFive-night minimum for anywhere involving an airport.
- bOne plan per day, scheduled before lunch.
- cOne repeatable pleasure per trip: a bakery, a bench, a swim.
- dOne blank day per week, defended like a reservation.
Written by June Saltmarsh
June writes Saltmarsh Journal from a sunlit rental in Sausalito and plans every trip around bakeries now.
