Appreciation post: The cafe owner in Chiang Mai who changed how I see slow travel

I met a man named Anan at his small coffee shop near the old city wall last month. He told me, 'You people come here for two weeks and try to see everything. I have lived here forty years and still find new corners.' That simple line made me cancel my next flight and book a place for three months instead. Has anyone else had a local person give you advice that really shifted your plans?

3 comments

3 Comments

uma_webb281mo agoMost Upvoted

My old travel style was a checklist of sights. I rushed through cities just to get the photo. Then a fisherman in Maine told me the real story of his town wasn't in the guidebook, it was in the morning fog on the water. I stayed an extra week just to see that fog. Now I plan trips around people, not places.

bettywilson1mo ago

You stayed an EXTRA WEEK for fog?

miab871mo ago

Get where you're coming from but honestly I think this slow travel stuff gets romanticized way too much. For every wise old fisherman or cafe owner there's a dozen locals who would rather you just buy your coffee and leave so they can get back to their day. Sometimes a place is famous for a reason and rushing through the highlights is exactly what you should do when you've only got two weeks of vacation a year. Not everyone has the privilege to just cancel flights and book three months somewhere, that's a huge financial decision that most people can't make. I've seen too many travelers use "slow travel" as an excuse to be disorganized and end up missing the actual cool stuff because they were too busy trying to find some deep meaning in ordinary mornings.