Slow travel: what it is and why it's on the rise

**Slow travel** is a way of travelling that puts the quality of the experience above the quantity of things seen: fewer stops, longer stays, and modes of transport that carry you through a place instead of flying over it. It doesn't mean being slow for its own sake, but choosing time as part of the journey. The question "what is slow travel?" has a simple answer: it's the opposite of the hit-and-run tour that crams ten monuments into two days and leaves places with nothing but passing traffic and residents with nothing but queues.

Its Italian origins

The philosophy has clear Italian roots. It grew out of Slow Food, the movement founded by Carlo Petrini in the 1980s in response to the standardisation of food. From that culinary starting point the idea spread to the way we live and travel: in 1999 **Cittaslow** was born, the network of "slow cities" that puts quality of life, sustainability and local identity at its heart. Today it counts around ninety towns in Italy and more than three hundred cities across over thirty countries. Another turning point came in 2009, when journalist Nicky Gardner published the Slow Travel Manifesto, setting out the principles of travelling at a gentle pace: favouring the train and overland routes, giving time to communities, and treating the journey as part of the experience rather than just a cost to cut.

Why it's growing

Why is it on the rise? Because it answers a very real fatigue. Several market analyses estimate annual growth of around 10% for slow tourism, driven by the demand for more authentic, low-impact experiences. Younger generations are leading the shift: industry reports record a growing number of travellers who choose secondary cities and destinations instead of overcrowded hotspots. It's also a reaction to overtourism: when the postcard destinations become unliveable, shifting attention to villages, valleys and lesser-known itineraries benefits everyone, both the traveller and the places themselves.

The train takes centre stage

In practical terms, slow travel has two natural allies: the train and the unhurried pace. The train turns the journey into landscape. A weekend among the wine hills shows just how liberating it is to leave the car behind: we tell that story in Langhe and Monferrato by train, just as we do along the Emilian backbone in Emilia-Romagna by train along the Via Emilia or through the Baroque south in Eastern Sicily by train between Catania, Syracuse and the Val di Noto. For those who want to venture beyond the border without flying, night trains in Europe are the most consistent way to put the manifesto into practice: you fall asleep in one city and wake up in another.

The other pillar is tailor-made itineraries of just a few days, designed to stay put rather than chase. Basilicata without a car in three days weaves together Matera, the Murgia and the Lucanian Dolomites; Abruzzo in three days at a slow pace crosses the villages of the Gran Sasso; the Barbagia in four days heads into the inland Sardinia of shepherds and murals; a slow weekend in Friuli Venezia Giulia links Cividale, Palmanova and Carnia. They are short itineraries, but built to stop, talk, eat and walk.

The heart of it: the villages

The heart of slow tourism, though, remains the villages: small towns where a single day is enough to get to know the shops and the rhythm of the place. Gavoi lives on cheese and its lake in the Barbagia; in Anghiari you climb on foot through the alleys of the Valtiberina; Sauris safeguards a German dialect and a smoked ham in Carnia; Triora tells its story of witch trials in the upper Valle Argentina; Castell'Arquato lines up medieval squares and wineries across the Piacenza hills. And those who want to take slowness abroad will find in Bachkovo and the Rhodope Mountains a Bulgaria that truly invites you to slow down.

Travelling slowly, in the end, is a simple choice: reduce the number of stops, increase the time spent at each one, favour the mode of transport that lets you see the road. It costs you less frenzy and gives back far more, both to the traveller and to the places that welcome them.

Sources: Cittaslow (cittaslow.org), Slow Food (Carlo Petrini), Slow Travel Manifesto by Nicky Gardner (2009), industry reports on 2025 trends.

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