If you’re looking for a slow travel experience but can only find articles listing expensive slow travel tours, you’ve come to the right place!
Slow travel shouldn’t have a huge price tag. In fact, most times traveling slowly will help you to save on travel costs since you aren’t moving around as much.
Since the world shut down from COVID-19, the slow travel trend has been growing.
At this point, many big travel bloggers have written at least one article along the lines of ‘what is slow travel’ or ‘why you should try slow travel’, to get in on the action.
And if you’re wondering why ‘slow travel tours’ cost so much? Well, in my opinion, they are using ‘slow travel’ as a buzzword to attract more people to their tours.
If you’re looking for some actual answers about how to have a slow travel experience that won’t break the bank, well I have a solution for you.
I want to show you that a slow travel experience doesn’t have to cost thousands if you know where to look!
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What Is A Slow Travel Experience?
Defining slow travel can be difficult because it can mean something different to each individual.
You can think of slow travel as a mindset, you can do it anywhere and there are no set parameters that tell you if you’re doing it wrong.
Generally, as a slow traveler, you should be doing your best to make conscious decisions to travel better.
‘Traveling better’ means that you are trying to lessen your environmental impact from transport, opting to boost the local economy rather than international tourism businesses, etc.
So when you’re trying to find a slow travel experience, you need to think about whether slow travel principles match up with it.
You ask some of the questions below to weed out the bogus experiences or tours that have the ‘slow travel’ buzzword slapped on them.
- Is it a local travel company that is run by local people?
- Is the experience/tour guide a local?
- Does the experience contribute to over tourism (like taking you to take you to obvious tourist sites)?
- Does it give you the chance to take your time to be immersed in the culture?
- Is it an experience that respects the local environments?
- Is it an experience that helps you to learn about the culture respectfully?
- Does it include transport that has a high environmental impact on the earth? (Planes & cruise ships have the highest damage)
What’s Keeping You From Slow Travel Experiences?
A huge issue that many people have with the idea of ‘slow travel’ is that they don’t have enough time. It makes sense too since usually, we associate the term ‘slow’ with time.
Not Enough Time
It’s true that many individuals have only two weeks of holiday/vacation per year, and of course many don’t have any vacation time at all.
But what most don’t realize is that ‘slow travel’ can be done regardless of how much time you have.
Even if you go on a day trip or weekend getaway, slow traveling during that means that you don’t rush through every activity that your destination has to offer.
Instead, you enjoy fewer experiences, so you can appreciate what you’re doing and where you are.
This will help you have high-quality experiences that you remember later on, rather than a high quantity of only subpar experiences that you’ll forget later on.
Not Enough Money
There’s still a huge misconception that travel is expensive. So the idea of taking a few weeks to slow travel might sound very privileged, especially when most people think of travel accommodation as staying in a hotel or Airbnb.
If you did that for two weeks, it could set you back hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Fortunately, nowadays there are many ways to avoid high travel costs without sacrificing your happiness. And no I’m not just talking about staying in 16 person hostel rooms!
Since the two biggest travel expenses are transport and accommodation, it makes sense to say that if you can greatly reduce or eliminate one of these, it opens up more possibilities.
That’s why, if you’re wanting to do a slow travel experience, but can’t afford it, I think house sitting is for you!
Why House Sitting Is The Most Affordable Slow Travel Experience
House sitting allows you to cut out one of the largest travel expenses, accommodation. Not only does it give your wallet a break, but it also means that you could be staying in places that are way better than crowded dorm rooms in hostels.
I’m talking about beautiful mountain villas or city center apartments. It comes in especially handy if you want to slow travel somewhere with a high cost of living like New York City or London, or countries like Iceland or Norway.
House sitting is a unique slow travel experience because you are looking after a local’s home (and sometimes pets) in exchange for a free place to stay.
It’s a great deal if you don’t mind putting in a little bit of extra effort.
Plus, without all of your money going towards accommodation, you can now focus it on other things. It’s perfect if you are wanting to stretch your funds to cover a longer period.
Related – What are the duties of a house sitter?
House sitting is also great for slow traveling because it means you will usually be in a local neighborhood where prices are bound to be lower. This also means you’re supporting the local economy by eating at local restaurants and purchasing food at the local grocery stores.
House sitting gives you a bit of a jump start into the local culture since you can get advice when talking to the house owner. Having that automatic connection can open up a world of possibilities and adventures. Locals always know the best food spots and hidden gems!
Related – How to become a house sitter with no experience
House sit opportunities can have a time commitment of anywhere between a single weekend to 6 months or even a year! Normally, they are around 1-2 weeks though, which is perfect for someone thinking of doing a house sit on their vacation time.
It’s also worth mentioning that house sitting is a great alternative to volunteering with work exchanges. Many work exchange projects can be physically intense and require you to help up to 25 hours a week. House sitting is a good option since it isn’t as physically strenuous and usually requires less time.
TrustedHousesitters
So what do you think… is house sitting the slow travel experience you’ve been looking for?
If that’s you, we always recommend the TrustedHousesitters platform, because it’s seriously amazing. They have more house sitting opportunities than all other house sitting websites in the world combined!
When you sign up for a membership, you get access to unlimited house sits worldwide and free verification for your profile. Confirming your identity helps keep the site safe and makes it more likely for you to get house sits too.
TrustedHousesitters also have an easy-to-use mobile application and great customer support. Their one-year membership costs $120 / €99, which is the same price for 1 night in a hotel or maybe a weekend in an Airbnb. As long as you do at least 1 house sit, it will be worth the cost.
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