Slow Tourism: the charm of slow travel
Slowness, respect and sustainability are the keywords of Slow Tourism, a new way of travelling that transforms a holiday into a complete, profound and engaging experience.
Slow Tourism is a new form of sustainable and responsible tourism that invites people to slow down their pace and discover extraordinary cultures and territories such as Sardinia.
Slow tourism, as opposed to mass tourism, the equivalent of fast and frenetic vacations, is focuses on the value of experience, the spiritual dimension of travel, the importance of living the place and paying attention to the details that make each destination unique.
Those who embrace the principles of Slow Tourism overcome what defines the classic tourist by transforming into a conscious traveller who abandons the frantic races against time, and embraces each emotion with calm and joy. The journey thus becomes an opportunity to discover yourself alongside the history, customs and products of the local culture.
The Slow Traveller has a green soul and moves in full respect of the environment, people and traditions that belong to the chosen place to visit. It is no coincidence that the preferred destinations for those who practice slow tourism are those in contact with nature, such as hiking or walking along the mountain paths and among the streets of cities and villages.
Also, new travellers would not use an aircraft but would prefer new forms of sustainable mobility (such as car-sharing) and means of transport with low environmental impacts, such as bicycles, buses or trains to cover medium and long distances.
Slow Tourism: the origin
When did Slow Tourism begin? The new approach to travelling is part of a wider Slow movement, a cultural and gastronomic movement founded in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, sociologist, gastronome, writer and Italian activist.
In 1986 Petrini started a protest against the opening of a Mcdonald’s restaurant in Piazza di Spagna in Rome that led to the creation of Slow Food, an organization born in response to the spread of fast food, junk food and frenetic habits in modern life.
Over the years, the Slow philosophy has influenced other sectors, and more and more initiatives have spread in very different fields.
In fact, in addition to Slow Tourism, Slow Cities, and Slow Design, Slow Medicine was invented for a more respectful and fair medical practice.
Carlo Honorè, Canadian writer and journalist, author of the international bestseller ‘Elogio della lentezza’, states that Slow philosophy can be applied in every field of human life, and describes with these words the movement: “It’s a cultural revolution against the idea that faster is always better. The philosophy of “Slow” is not to do everything at the speed of a snail. It is to do everything at the right speed. Savour the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Do everything in the best possible way, instead of as quickly as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work, to food to parenting”.
Slow Tourism: destination Sardinia
Sardinia is the ideal destination for a trip under the denomination of Slow Tourism. The famous English writer David Herbert Richards Lawrence describes it well in the book Sea and Sardinia as he talks about his journey from Taormina to Cagliari and then inside the island undertaken in 1921, together with his wife Frieda.
Lawrence writes in his travel diary: “Sardinia is another thing: wider, more customary, not at all irregular, vanishing into the distance. Crests of hills like heath, irrelevant, which are lost, perhaps, to a small group of peaks… Enchanting place and distance to travel, nothing finished, nothing definitive. Like freedom itself”. And he adds: “Sardinia is out of time and history”.
This corner of paradise in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea is a marvellous place, rich in natural beauty and postcard landscapes: from the reflection in the sea of cliffs hiding pretty little bays to the beaches of fine white sand and the wetlands home to pink flamingos, through the majestic mountains and up to the villages of ancient cities such as Cagliari and its surroundings.
Surrounded by the colours and scents of the Mediterranean, Sardinia is a slow-paced journey between land and sea with paths that lead to the discovery of extraordinary places full of history, wild and unspoilt nature, folk traditions and timeless flavours that describe the authentic soul of the island with pastoral and marine cuisine.
Do you want to discover and experience a holiday full of charm and elegance? Book your stay at Palazzo Doglio in Cagliari
