How slow travel is boosting culture worldwide

From the carriage window, I peer down slopes of knee-deep grass to where a river worms in the valley, its body twinkling in the morning light. The train has renewed vigour, going up a gear as it runs a gauntlet of cliff faces and o-shaped tunnels on the final stretch to Beijing. A solo fisherman watches as we thunder by and women wave from the doorways of rural homes, their roofs curved up like hems on dainty skirts. Soon, the softness of the scene hardens to concrete and metal pylons, high-rise apartments squeeze beside the tracks and neon billboards stretch across the skyline. Smog thickens, traffic draws close and the train slows into the platform, wailing to a halt. Eight weeks earlier I had departed from London St Pancras on the Eurostar to Paris, and now, after 33 train rides and more than 10,000 miles overland, I have finally arrived in the Chinese capital.

It was June 2015 and I was researching my second book, Around the World in 80 Trains. Five years earlier I had spent four months travelling the length and breadth of Indian Railways for my first book, Around India in 80 Trains (there’s a theme), which came about after I had read an article detailing how the country’s domestic airlines could now connect 80 cities. I was curious to explore those places, many of which I’d never heard of, but I couldn’t conceive of leaving such an enormous carbon footprint by flying between them. Air travel accounts for two per cent of global CO2 emissions, but aircraft engines also release nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, water vapour and particulate matter which impact the atmosphere at high altitudes. So I turned to trains, buying a rail pass and immersing myself into the bloodstream that keeps the country’s heart beating. Over the next four months on board I sat with everyone from diplomats to vegetable vendors, student nurses to graphic designers. They griped to me about the government, divulged desires to start their own businesses and dispelled myths about religious strife – feeding me insights I’d never find online. As we rolled from one hub to the next, I discovered regional cuisines as hawkers hopped on and off selling snacks unique to each state, the railways key to their livelihoods. Soon my guidebook was laid to rest as my companions pointed out glorious, but lesser-known temples, historic salt flats and rare kingfishers, advising on where I should eat, sleep and visit to support their local communities. Many passengers became lifelong friends, and although I hadn’t realised it at the time, I was already embracing the slow travel revolution.

Loosely defined as intentional travel with a focus on planet positivity and more thoughtful, immersive experiences, the slow travel movement was born of the slow food movement which came about in 1986 when a McDonald’s franchise opened its first restaurant in Rome. When it sprang up by the historic Spanish Steps, furious Italians gathered to protest against its arrival with a journalist named Carlo Petrini defiantly handing out plates of fresh penne to the protesters to emphasise the importance of local produce cooked with love. “I was alarmed by the culturally homogenizing nature of fast food,” he told Time magazine in an interview in 1999. During the Covid lockdowns, limitations on travel drove a drastic reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and it was abundantly clear that the earth was enjoying a much-needed breather. But by the latter part of 2020 emissions returned to near pre-pandemic levels resulting in the resurgence of slow travel as a more favourable alternative to the ‘fly-and-flop’ holidays that continue to harm the planet. If left unchecked, these flights and their total emissions will quadruple by 2050 and yet the fact remains that tourism represents 10 per cent of global GDP and is a mainstay of local economies. Which begs the question: is it possible to sustain tourism by ethical means?

In March 2020 Cat Jones founded Byway, a 100 per cent flight-free travel platform that tailors journeys by land and sea only. Focusing on stops that are off the beaten path, Byway favours local transport and locally owned accommodation and the company has already documented the tangible effect of slow travel. “There’s a clear and measurable difference between the carbon impact of flying and travelling flight-free,” says Cat. “We have carbon costs and comparisons on all of our trips, and taking the train instead of flying can reduce emissions by up to 90 per cent per holiday.” The cumulative emissions savings from Byway customers who choose rail, buses and ferries instead of flying are significant, and Byway tracks this with every booking made. “The broader impact of slow travel also comes from supporting sustainable tourism,” says Cat, “encouraging longer stays, spreading tourism beyond overcrowded hotspots and reducing the high-carbon infrastructure needed for mass air travel.”

When I embarked upon my round-the-world railway adventure I felt that as a society we were increasingly obsessed with speed – inventing bullet trains, ever-faster wifi, and tasteless instant coffee – yet what were we doing with all that extra time we were saving? And why did the days feel busier, longer and harder, our minds overburdened and tired? The physical slowness of train travel calmed my thoughts, allowing me to be present in each moment as I noticed a cuckoo calling through the dawn mists in Thailand, the smell of wet paddy fields in Vietnam, or the feel of the setting sun warming my cheeks in Malaysia. Not just a physical movement, I could see how slow travel is a mindset. Around me were passengers travelling for work. Instead of driving or taking a short-haul flight, they had chosen to take the train to reduce the stress of dashing to airports or sitting in gridlock. With a cold beer by an open laptop, they typed, sipped and chatted, taking the opportunity to relax and work. Slow travel doesn’t have to mean months of adventure, it could be a weekend at a local campsite or a morning commute with a paperback instead of a podcast.

In 2000 Justin Francis OBE co-founded Responsible Travel with the intention of driving up demand for travel experiences that were more enjoyable because they did good. The hope was to define a model of tourism that inspired positive change, one that others in the industry would want to emulate. “Life has grown more fast-paced and we’re always ‘on’ – we can feel overwhelmed by technology, consumerism and bad news,” says Justin. “I think travelling more mindfully is partly a response to that. The power to step back into something meaningful and positive. We’re also increasingly conscious of our consumption – we’ve seen it with fast fashion and food, and that’s filtering into travel choices.”

There are many ways to engage with the slow travel moment, but for me train travel will always offer a window-seat to the world. On my journey from the UK to China I’d learnt that there were no real beginnings or endings, borders or boundaries. From dawn to dusk I’d watched lakes grow into seas, mountains rise then recede, deserts expand then shrink. My fellow passengers had come and gone with a gradation of features that sharpened and darkened the further we moved east, my onboard meals had slowly deepened in flavour and spice and I’d listened to the sound of languages merge with each other. Had I flown from London to Beijing I would have lifted out of one city and dropped into another with no concept of time, space or distance. But having observed the earth at ground level, I had a greater sense of place than ever before, bearing witness to the truth that the world is small, close and connected.

Monisha Rajesh is the author of Moonlight Express: Around the World by Night Train, available for pre-order from Bloomsbury

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