EA Radio Episode # 15 - Fast Travel vs. Slow Travel

Scott Stein, the owner of and travel planner for Extraordinary Adventures (//www.myextraordinaryadventures.com/travel-podcast.html), is joined by his lovely wife, Laura, to discuss the virtues and drawbacks of fast travel vs. slow travel.

Music: www.bensound.com

(The show transcript is being provided by YouTube's automatic transcriber. Please forgive any inaccuracies or errors.)

 [Applause] [Music] hello everybody this is scott again from extraordinary adventures EA radio welcome you today to the 15th episode and today's episode we're gonna kick off with a question we got from George down in Lakeland it was curious about he's going parents going out Ireland and Scotland then he's curious about how much time he should spend there so I said you know what this would be a really great opportunity to discuss fast travel versus slow travel first the definitions and second the examples and I said you know this is a topic that's not heavy in research I thought it'd be a great opportunity for our guest host to come back and and join us hi everyone okay well that's the show for today though much all right so fast travel versus slow travel really for me the definition I think boils down to unfortunately the American days-off whatever they call that vacation time schedule we all get X amount two three four weeks a year whatever we get but even if we get four weeks a year very often we can't take more than a week or two at one time so even if you include that with you know weekends with that maybe a holiday the most you're gonna get up to is eight nine ten days that to me is fast travel there's not a lot of places you can go you can go to one city you can go to Rome and maybe you know day trip out to a few spots in a week because remember ten days you got to spend the whole day flying and getting over there a whole day flying and coming back so that's now you're down to eight days Rome itself is gonna take you two or three days and you make three or four day trips that's your trip you can't see all of Italy in a week slow travel on the other hand is what Lauren I do when we go we try to go for 16 18 20 days at a time so now you're in the country for two weeks three weeks at a time now that's giving you some time so now you can hit multiple cities you know but you really still can't do too much but that's just the time definition best travel versus slow travel to me more is also a philosophical definition than just a time one and four for me the fast travel is those folks which I've done it Lauren I did it when we were in DC you know it was a checklist travel check seen it check seen it check seen it check seen it and you just move and you move and you move you going yeah I've seen it done it been there then there's slow travel where very often would slow travel you don't even know if you care if you've seen it and done it it's about immersing yourself in the authenticity and and the culture of your travel of your destination so a slow travel may look like you go to Dublin for a month for two months you literally are in one city for a month or two and you're checking out all the neighbourhoods you go into the different grocery stores and then you you in that case you usually will be getting an apartment or some kind of a timeshare thing you're not gonna get a hotel because you're gonna be there for a while and it's really about getting to know the people and people getting to know you if you're doing that let's say in more of a natural spot so not a city like like Dublin but let's say you go out to you know the Ring of Kerry and you're out there and you're with the people you know maybe you can't spend two months out there maybe that's just too much time so you have to define slow travel also by how much there is to see and do so that's fast travel versus slow travel in terms of definitions now the gentleman asked about George asked about Ireland versus versus our Ireland and Scotland so Laura give us some because we're researching this right now actually for a client give us some ideas of what George could consider for Ireland Scotland that would be maybe slow versus fast and help him decide I don't know if he's a retiree and he has plenty of time if he's only got a week let's talk about Ireland who's coming okay well the first thing really to take into account is travel time and that's something that a lot of people don't even figure in it takes time to check out of a hotel and then either get to the airport or take a train to their next destination and then check back into the net hotel before they're actually ready to go and start seeing the site so if someone says oh I have two days in Edinburgh well the reality is more like you're gonna have a day and a half or a day in two hours or three hours so that's not really two full days so you really have to take that into account when saying how many days do you need in a particular place I would recommend no fewer than two full days at any location preferably three you're sleeping for two nights for sure correct yes because otherwise you're living out of your luggage and you're just going from place to place to place now that's fast travel I mean when you're just spending one day one night and then you have to pick up and go to the next place the next day if you had any significant travel time between the two destinations you're literally just getting there to check into your hotel to go to sleep to get up and leave the next day which is kind of ridiculous so unless you're using unless you're using that as like a quote on a Waystation like as a midway point so for instance when we were driving up to Cheshire we stopped in number nine was it for one night and then we checked out the nice day but the Cotswolds isn't very heavy with sights distance things to do so we checked in did hung out in the town and the next day we got in the car to go see more of the Cotswolds because it's really really drawn you know long and drawn out it's not that something you're doing in one defined area so if you're passing through something you could potentially consider doing uh night but that's a very rare circumstance right right and then you know really the the biggest thing is to kind of take stock about what what it is that you want to see in a specific place you know kind of unfortunately do your homework before you get there unfortunately it is yes I'm I agree but sometimes you know people don't have the time well that's why they hire us but um you know so we would actually then telling you how many days we recommend in each location the other thing is beep brutally honest with yourself don't go somewhere and see something because the world tells you supposed to see it if you're been there done that and you've seen enough churches enough caches and enough museums and you just don't want to see it don't go see it don't see what you want to see go there for the reasons you want to go there right also you know another thing that people don't take into account is not only the travel time to get from point A to point B but let's you know say you want to do an excursion and you want to go kiss the Blarney Stone it takes time to get to the Blarney Stone and then once you get to the Blarney Stone you're not the only person in line to go and kiss the Blarney Stone there is a line so you think that the excursion might only take two hours but it might end up actually taking four hours and a lot of people also don't take into account the fact that they're gonna get hungry and they're gonna want to eat and can you go and grab a quick something you know and just standing up and scarf it down or do you want to have slow travel and sit and enjoy a nice meal but you have to remember dining standards in Europe are very different than dining standards in the United States their average dining experience takes two plus hours it's not a quick order it eat it give me the check and get out it could be 15 20 minutes for your server first shows it to your table there's a waiting do we have a server right so these are definitely things to take into account when you're planning your day it's not just what you want to see it's how long is it gonna take and maybe you have to go to the bathroom and it's you know where there's something that happens it's gonna take you gotta you need to build in buffers of time as all I'm trying to say so basically our rule of thumb is you when you finally figure out what it is you want to do in a place imagine at Mac's you're gonna do one or two of those things in a given day to max don't think you can clam cram in three or four or five things in a day because it's not going to happen you're gonna want to do is just like one if it's a big thing or two if they're smaller and that's it and then call it a day right I mean that's that's what's the what I'm looking for that's true for the major sites but that doesn't mean and what she's not saying here's she's not saying that you can't do things at the end of the day so for instance one of the things that we like to recommend when you're in England and which I would imagine this is across the boards for Scotland and Ireland and all that it's not necessarily as true for Germany but we did a phenomenal pub tour that started at six o'clock at night so now you can do the two things that Laura just told you to do and then at night you do a literary pub tour you go see where the poets are drinking their beers and doing their poetry so that now becomes a third thing but it's not quite what she's talking about you talking about seeing sights going the British Museum or whatever you're doing going to the London Tower or whatever but you can do those two major sites and you know few hours in the morning a few hours in the afternoon you got the two sites down and then at night you do what's considered like a third thing but it's more of a relaxed thing right exactly so and then of course not only she's talking a lot here about and this is kind of her brain versus mine she's talking about the plan the structure like she's that's like her thing in our company is that she really angles a lot of that making it all fit making the pieces fit for me though it's oh it's always been more about the content and the why I enjoy researching why you're going there what's to see what's to do if I was to go to Edinburgh it's considered a place you go for two or three days I could spend 10 days in Edinburgh each night there's a different pub to go to each day I went to see I for instance for me I know this about myself and as what I said about five minutes ago to you know yourself I know I'm a Roma file so anywhere there's a Roman artifact kind of thing I'm gonna linger there for like hours like looking at every my new show that's gonna take my time these these countries in Europe are layered I mean they are so layered they they have Stone Age history and on top of that they're gonna have you know medieval history they're gonna have modern-day history there's so much history so many layers of history they didn't in any given spot you could spend a lot of time and that's kind of how I like to do it I like to not necessarily been on vacation we get up by 7:00 7:30 we're kind of ready to go and eating our breakfast by like 9:00 to 10:00 o'clock we're ready for the day maybe a little bit later than some folks would like to do it but it's good enough for us and then that gives us 6 7 8 hours before things start closing for the day five six o'clock to just get out there and see stuff and then at night we like to slow down we like to go to the pub but we like to go to the beer garden we like to go and be with people but again we know that about ourselves and we know that it's going to take us a certain amount of time based on our history of travel if you haven't had a history of travel that makes it harder but that's why you use a travel planner who can kind of mind read you and help you plan for yourself right so another one is like we keep bringing up England Ireland Scotland and then Germany because as you may or may not know those are our major destination specialties we do a lot of Europe but we do you know all of Europe but those areas are our two specialties so we bring those up a lot speaking of Scotland you think oh I'm just gonna go to Scotland for a few days you have any idea how big Scotland is and you have any idea how sometimes there are roads at a 30 mile per hour roads you really think you're gonna do 90 miles an hour and fly there in a couple hours like you would do here in the States it's not gonna happen yeah sometimes there are one lane roads with two two directions of traffic and you can't pass each other so whoever Pat most recently passed a little shoulder has to back their car all the way up pull into that little bitch but the other guy passed and then you continue on in Ireland's got or not the easiest necessarily once you get out into the countryside to make fast time right yeah it's definitely a slow going thing plus you have a marked propensity to get lost as we did we were driving through a cornfield literally it was like a dirt like corn on either side we couldn't see the road we had no idea and we had no cell phone reception so we just like going until we got cell phone reception we were totally and thoroughly lost but it ended up being a really fun day yeah but we didn't get to see what we wanted to see that day and the other thing to know about the countries that you're going to the Italian the southern Italians are really known for this but the English Irish and Scottish should know for this to like to slow down kind of like Suthers in America versus us we're from New York they like to slow down talk get to know you you get to know them like they have all day all the time in the day and you're like I got to go see this and I got ever see that well part of the reason you're over there is to meet the people so you're up in Scotland you pull over and you see a guy in like you want directions you ain't getting directions at first you're getting his story he's getting your story I mean it's it's it's a very different way of traveling and if that's not for you you may want to stick to the cities but if you stick to the cities in Scotland and Ireland I can guarantee you you're missing Scotland I yeah and people are really friendly and you get to know them like when we got we got into a head-on car collision in England and a woman we were on a main road and this woman who lived a couple blocks she heard the car accident and she saw how shaken up I was she came to the main road to see me she invited me back to her house I was just sitting in her house chillin yeah waiting for the ambulance to get there but that would never happen it sticks at least where we grew up New York and Florida now plus it was really cool to see the way she lives yeah yeah so so yeah I think you're getting the idea that there's the checklist of travel where you're just Bam Bam Bam you're constantly living out your suitcase you're just you're just whiplash speeds and then there's another member I'll travel that you know I I understand that the American Way of doing with our vacation days dough isn't always conducive to it but that doesn't mean you can't do it let's say you do only out that week don't say I'm gonna take that week and I'm gonna go to Germany Italy Austria Switzerland and then oh well might as well stop in England on the way back that's insanity you're not gonna do that you have to get realistic and say okay I have a week I'm gonna basically be able to do one major city and the surrounding towns and that's it that's really all you can do so you know that I guess is pretty much our spiel for them unless you have something additional bad no no I hope we helped George yeah yeah so I guess you know give him a hard a harder number he wants to know about Ireland Scotland I would say if he's gonna do Edinburgh and Dublin like literally just the two cities that's a different story and then you might do that in ten days yeah okay if you want to do Ireland and Scotland I think you're looking at in the country at least a week per country that's not including the flights to and from so you're looking at 16 days 17 days that might be from just Scotland I don't think you can't you could do that Ireland am Scott I think you would do the 3 days in the city you go out in four days and do the countryside you go to Cork you go to ring care you go you go to Edinburgh and then you head up to you know st. Andrews and you go to I mean Scotland's a big bigger so you might go like additional day there so maybe you're at 18 days with 16 days so he days in each one or something but that's the kind of time you'd be looking at George if you wanted to really see both of those countries if you're good with just seeing the two major cities then you could probably get that done when you go from a Saturday to the following Sunday you could probably get that done it's tight but you know I think you'd have a good time with that so I hope that answers the question George all right that's it we're gonna keep it short today probably a little bit longer than I already wanted it to be but that's it fast travel versus slow travel if you enjoyed that you know please let me know reach out email Facebook Twitter whatever and then of course please share all this with your friends we are now on iTunes and Google Play so you can send the Podcast link to all your friends that's it so until next time this is Scott from a certain area ventures on ei radio reminding you to tune in next week for the next episode I'll be a row yeah thanks [Music]