Does it really matter how you travel full-time? Like are you a slow traveler, a fast traveler, or somewhere in between?
No, it doesn’t. No one cares how we travel. When I admitted that we sucked at slow travel, I was bombarded with people mad at me for judging our own travel. And those who pointed this out to me; they were right. It really doesn’t matter how we travel and if we’re even good at it.
The Rhythm of Travel
What is important, though, is understanding our own rhythm of travel so we can make happy decisions about logistics and location choice. Two days here, one month there. Some places are definitely “slow travel” places warranting a moment to savor, while others may be “fast travel” because they’re expensive or they don’t need lots of time to enjoy.
We definitely define ourselves as full-time travelers, even going so far to identify ourselves as full-time traveling nomads. Afterall, we have no home and we carry everything we own with us. We migrate to better weather year round, and sometimes we return to our favorite places to see family or to enjoy a favorite location. This is what nomads do by definition.
But are we truly nomads if we have banking, voting and taxing tethers to the US? I honestly can’t answer that question. I will, though, differentiate us from other full-time travelers who aren’t nomads. These people travel all the time, but their home or their home base is a constant part of their life and it contains their possessions. What makes full-time travelers differ from full-time traveling nomads is the location of their possessions.
Nonetheless, regardless of who you are; full-time travelers or full-time traveling nomads (or any other variations like semi-nomadic, part-time nomad, digital nomad and others); your pace of travel and what you carry or don’t carry with you will shake up your decisions more than anything else.
Let’s look at how three different types of traveling pace impact rhythm:
Slow travel: We define slow travel as a pace where people move about one month at a time or more. We save money by booking places for 28 days at a time or more on Airbnb/Booking/Rental Management company. We might join the local gym, take a class, or volunteer. A local coffee shop might become the daily hangout where the barista knows our names.
When slow traveling, we will pick a location that suits what we want to do for that month. Is it a month of “being” where we relax, do our hobbies, live our lives, and meander through the day? Or it a month of “doing” where we gobble up all the sites, maintain checklists of things to do, and set of social dates with other nomads?
Slow travelers rely on public transit or perhaps might even rent a car for the month. We pick our accommodation based on the transportation we need for the month. We have time to get around.
Fast travel: We define fast travel as a pace where people move about every few days. We spend more money on hotels because we aren’t getting multiple-week discounts. We find the gym in the hotel or across the street in the park \to be sufficient enough for our fitness needs. As fast travelers, we are mostly “doing” rather than “being.” We have filled to-do lists of local sites and squeeze in visits with other nomads over activities or meals.
Fast travelers rely on transit or cars, yet we also might throw in taxis and ubers. We don’t have time to meander and lolly-gag; we want to see as much as we can in as short of amount of time as possible. It’s almost as if we’re on vacation.
Mixed travelers: We define mixed travelers as people who do a combo of slow and fast traveler. We have discovered this is how we like to travel. Sometimes we stay for a month to relax and “be.” We’ll throw in a week or two of fast travel as we transit to our next slow travel destination. During these few fast travel weeks, we might do something fun like a week’s long bike ride or a hike. Granted these are slower forms of transportation, but they are still fast travel (many different beds over few days.)
Combining Speeds to Produce Rhythm
So how does the pace of travel affect our decisions and create a rhythm? Let’s look at an example.
During a recent planning session, we looked at a 10-week period of time. For a month, we wanted to be in a big city and live the big city life. We picked an Airbnb near all the sites. We received a 40% discount on the month’s price. The unit sat almost in the center of town, near a park, along transit, with a gym and grocery within walking distance.
During this first month’s stay, we purchased a month’s transit pass, got a discount card at the local grocery, and became regulars at a coffee shop. We found a hiking club through a Facebook group and hiked twice with them. These hikes got us invites to a bike ride with our new friends and a chance to volunteer at a local school to plant a garden. Several other nomads came through this city while we were there, and we had many social activities with them including a cheese tasting, an urban sketching event, and a picnic in the local park.
While at our first month’s stay, we decided we wanted to do another month’s stay in a city that was a 6-hour train ride away. Along the path of the train ride were several places we wanted to see. So instead of doing a 6-hour train ride, we broke it into 3, 2-hour train rides. We stayed 3-4 days at each train location.
At these fast travel locations, there were particular things we wanted to do, having researched those locations first. We booked hotels near things to visit. In one city, a modern art musuem called our name. We signed up for a specially guided tour of the museum. We also found a gpsmycity walk of the town, and we did that on another day.
In the next little stop, we found a hike through a gorge we’d read about. We spent the day hiking then found a vegan restruant that had a Michelin star. We also stopped in the local library because it had a local author discusses her book about the gorge. What timing!
Finally, on the third stop on the way to our next month’s stay, it was a very expensive city. We again stayed in a hotel near the city center so we could walk to all the sites. We bought a city pass that put us in fast mode to get around to all the sites in just 48 hours.
By the time we got to our second month’s stay, we were exhausted. We knew back when we were planning this stretch of travel that we’d be exhausted by the time we got to this destination. Therefore, we booked a quiet cottage in the country. Although still accessible by transit, the bus only arrived once an hour, rather than every ten minutes. We spent the month enjoying the garden, walking the local forest, and meandering into town.
The second month was a “being” month. We relaxed, cooked, wrote, produced videos, caught up with family and friends, freshened up the contents of our carry-ons, and began planning our next spurt.
By going from a fast month of Doing to a few fast weeks of Doing as we transitted to a slow month of Being, we established a rhythm that works for us. We tend to repeat this rhythm throughout the year. Repositioning cruises modify the rhythm yet again. Knowing this rhythm makes it easer to make decisions about housing and transit, helps us anticipate our food and exercise needs, and makes us adjust to what’s in our carry-on bags.
When we do our annual video about our expenses, we talk about this rhythm. If you’d like to see our this Slow/Fast/Slow Being/Doing/Being rhythm works in real time, take a look at this video.
Traveling at Your Own Pace
Whether you travel slow or fast, spend time being or doing, finding a rhythm of travel that suits your needs will keep you happy and help with burnout. For us, that’s a variety of speeds punctuated by lots of activity or hardly any. We love our full-time traveling nomad life style. Tell us about yours!
This post caught my interest since the last year of freewheeling without plans included a mix of paces that fell into place naturally. The January through April portion was mostly one month or six week stints. The Mid-June through October portion began with a two week and a one week stint in small places in Ireland, followed by short hotel stints in Dublin and Glasgow. Then came week or ten day stints in Oban and then Tobermory, Scotland. From there I went to an Airbnb in Edinburgh for a few days, a hostel in Vilnius, Lithuania for a few days, then a combination hostel/hotel (pods) for a few days, then a private room in a huge Generator hostel in Stockholm for about ten or twelve days. I needed a break from the bunk in a hostel approach and needed to slow down. (I am the 82 year old taveler with a backpack.) I booked an apartment in one of my very favorite locations for a few weeks, extending it for a few more, Tivat, Montenegro. I developed a very satisfying rhythm there. I had planned to go from there to Vienna for a couple of weeks to participate in an event there, but a medical issue that needed attention brought me back to the US, where I stay with one of my children's family when I am in country. I don't do the detailed planning you do, although you mentioned that you are not hesitant to change plans at any time. This last year, I generally did not decide where I would go next until two days before I left to get there. There was only one activity in the year that was scheduled and that was the one in Vienna that I ended up missing. I have been traveling pretty much full time for three years and at least two months at a time for more than ten years before that. As a result, I intuitively manage the mix of cheaper Airbnbs and hostels. I have a fixed income and own nothing, so my income is available for travel and its costs. Thank you for your thoroughness in this post. It has helped me evaluate my situation in reationship to what you describe.
This is extremely helpful, thank you! T-3 months to launch day. Around 6 of our first 7 months are locked in for accommodations: 1x2 months, 2x1 month, and a few 1-2 week stints with some open spaces in between. Thinking 3 weeks working our way down the Baltics may be the longest stretch of fast-ish travel. Little dog Wally is coming along which adds another filter to planning. Thanks so much for sharing - your blogs and videos have been so helpful even to this quite experienced adventurer.