Slow Adventure

Adventure doesn't have to be about going higher, faster, deeper further. Give yourself permission to slowly explore

You might have heard about the concept of slow travel, but I’m here to talk about slow adventure.

It’s what I’ve been doing for years without putting a name on it, I’ve cycled from Northern France to the most southern point of mainland Europe with my dad, an epic journey creating memories I will treasure forever. It sounds like a feat of incredible fitness and endurance, a journey of well over 1,000 miles, the reality however, is that we only travelled for an average of 45km (30 miles) per day.

If we passed a nice looking cafe, we would stop and drink coffee, a cafe con leche for me and a long black for dad. If we passed a beautiful viewpoint, we would stop, take in the view, and possibly brew up a coffee. You could really describe it as a tour of Europe’s coffee shops.

Some of the worst days we had were when we had to be somewhere at a specific time, requiring us to push on for long days and cycling into the evening, cycling past lush wild camping spots and instead camp in a layby or somewhere we’re not very hidden or safe. We tried to avoid this at all costs, often not booking flights home till halfway through the trip to avoid unrealistic timelines and the stress that comes with that.

Recently on a trip to the Dolomites with my partner - a slow travel hiking and wild camping trip with a general direction but no real agenda - we noticed the most beautiful butterflies I’ve ever seen. We stopped in our tracks and watched them for 15 minutes, watching their behaviour, looking at all the different details, trying to commit the image to our minds, letting them get comfortable with our presence and come closer to us.

We could do this because we hadn’t set an arbitrary distance to cover each day and march to the next highlight.

It’s easy to approach adventure like that under the guise of ‘seeing more’, however, there is enormous delight in seeing more but moving less.

When we think of adventure, we tend to think of crazy expeditions going higher, faster, further or deeper. But I would argue that adventure has no official bar when something is considered ‘adventure’. To one person, going for a 1 hour drive could be adventurous, for someone else a stormy night in the Brecon Beacons might hold little “adventure” value.

Given that adventure is so subjective, we can bring a sense of adventure to whatever we’re up to.

For me, I’d rather see 1 view and really be present than racing to the next 2 peaks to tick them off or give a half-arsed ‘wow’ then rush off. You get a photo, but do not experience it.

Going slow doesn’t mean seeing less, going back to the butterflies, it gave us an experience of awe and wonder, one that we had while others walked right past. They covered more ground but missed a wonderful experience in the process.

Slow adventure isn’t all about butterflies. For me, adventure is a combination of opening yourself to the unexpected, choosing uncertainty and making the stories that make life rich. On this trip we weren’t short of stories:

We were so close to a lightning strike we could feel the air fizz and our hands tingle, we slept in a bivouac (similar to a Scottish bothy) at the top of a mountain 2,700 metres high to wait out a storm. I will always remember that feeling of being at the top of the world in the eerie orange pre-storm light, surveying the vast landscape where, apart from the hut we slept in, could see no evidence that humans had ever walked the earth.

This isn’t the only way to see the world, heck I’ve taken part in ultra events where the whole aim is to cover the most ground possible, and I loved it too! But slow adventure is a wonderful way to meet the world.

Next time you’re planning an adventure, try relaxing the plan a little if you can, leave space to slow down or change the plan a little. Having that flexibility can be uncomfortable, but it might just give you a different perspective.

Let whatever happens happen. Not everything needs to be optimised.