It’s early July, and I’m seeing them everywhere: packed cars speeding down the highway, bikes strapped on the back, caravans attached, roof boxes bulging, children in the back seats glued to screens or squabbling. Everyone is headed South.
The urgency is almost palpable. People are in a rush to get there. They drive for ten hours straight, sometimes dangerously fast, determined to make it in one day. At the roadside rest areas, you see the toll: stressed-out parents, slumped on wooden rest stop benches with takeaway coffee, trying to soothe restless, overstimulated kids. Everyone looks like they’re doing a group endurance test rather than beginning a holiday.
I get it. Vacation days are few and precious. The desire to maximize every minute makes sense. But all too often, people arrive so worn out that the first few days are spent recovering — or worse, getting sick. The body finally has permission to stop, and it crashes.
Embracing a Slow Travel Mindset
But what if the journey wasn’t just a means to an end?
What if it was part of the holiday? What if we gave ourselves permission to move slowly, to take detours, to pause when something calls to us?
There is a beauty in the in-between. The villages with shuttered windows and a single bakery open. The quiet corners of forest just off the road. The stillness of early morning at a rest stop when no one else is awake yet. Even the rhythm of stopping, stretching, sipping a drink while watching clouds shift above a petrol station — it all becomes part of the story.
A Different Kind of Arrival
When we travel slower, we arrive differently. Not frazzled or on edge, but softened. We carry the impressions of the journey with us: the smell of pine from a roadside forest, the laugh we shared over spilled coffee, the feeling of being on the way instead of constantly running behind.
This shift doesn’t require a lot. Just a small decision not to rush. An extra night en route. A willingness to notice.
Because maybe the journey isn’t in the way of the destination. Maybe it is the destination, too.
So if you’re packing up this month, heading South or anywhere else — I wish you not just a beautiful holiday, but a beautiful road there.
Let the journey be part of what makes it worth going.
If this speaks to you, you might also enjoy this companion post: The Gentle Art of Slow Travel — a reflection on how traveling slowly isn’t just about pace, but about presence, discovery, and how we choose to move through the world.