That sense of slowing down…
Concorde, ah, Concorde…it’s almost five years to the day that the world’s first much celebrated supersonic passenger jet made a somewhat ignominious retirement. Following the disastrous Paris crash of 2000 and coupled with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the somewhat pricey, elitist cost of the whole ‘Concorde experience’ this was all perhaps a little inevitable. But the really interesting aspect of all of this for me was the notion that for practically the first time in history travel had just a got a little slower.
Since someone in Asia hacked a piece of wood into a rounded shape around 4000BC and discovered the propellant properties of the wheel it seems we’ve been forever getting inexorably faster. From cart and horse, to racing chariots, through the fears that steam rail travel would cause people’s necks to break, and red flag waving men preceeding ’speeding’ motorcars to alert sleepwalking pedestrians, we have lurched from a fear to a love of speed. Now it’s of the essence, road cars with engines capable of several times the speed limit, planes to take us on short-haul flights of bunny-hops less than 150 miles, we want to be there quicker, and ‘there’ is further and we want to do it more often!
So for me the fifth anniversary of Concorde’s retreat from serving the Trans-Atlantic flight routes is no bad thing. We’ve taken an arguably progressive step back from our obsession with ever faster travel. Travel that valued the destination over the journey, that encouraged a ‘fast food’ approach to experiences - stuff as much as you can in, as quick as you can, and compelled us to travel in cattle-trucks of the sky, sat, strapped in serried rows, glued to the in-flight entertainment and instructed when to eat and sleep (like giant babies in some aerial nursery).
Let’s rediscover the joy of slower travel. That part of the travel experience is about being on the move. Travelling through rather than simply over countries, relishing the gentle transitions of landscape, culture, people, language and cuisine. Meeting the people and negotiating borders that are real and physical not thousands of feet below. Ride an animal or two, they’re usually slow and pretty low carbon to boot, even if theyre not always available or entirely willing! Imagine the journey as a home-cooked meal, one to take care and love over cooking and then really savouring the end result. Or travel as a slow seduction process as you get to know your destination and the places along the way intimately, rather than a quick ‘knee-trembler’ behind the bike sheds of a budget, package holiday. Last year I went all the way around the world without flying and the experience of slow travel was incredible (www.lowcarbontravel.com).
Is it possible to travel ’slowly’ by plane? I don’t know, although a recent trip on an airship suggested to me that the return of the Zeppelin would certainly bring a new glamour and wonder to aviation. But when we travel in a truly grounded fashion, over the surface of our wondrous planet, be it overland or sea, we really connect with it. ‘The world’s a small place’ goes the clique. Well, yes. Until you travel through it.
So why not resize your planet. Reaquaint yourself with a slower pace of life and style of travel. And don’t worry about the absence of Concorde from our skies. Just enjoy the respite from our ever escalating speed and do things more sedately. But make the most of it. Before long Richard Branson will be twanging us into space on his passenger rocket, and things will start getting a whole lot faster again!
