Slow Travel: The Remedy for Decision Fatigue?

I remember once, around my second month living in Hoi An, Vietnam, sitting in a café and overhearing a traveller talking to her friends about decision fatigue. She was saying how exhausting it is having to constantly research and decide what to do in each new place and how she’d quite frankly had enough.

It wasn’t the first time I’d overheard conversations like this either. How draining it can be constantly using brain power to answer questions like… Where should we eat? Is it good? Is it affordable? Where should we stay? Is it safe? Clean? In a good location? What are the must-see places? How do we get from here to there?

When you’re travelling for weeks or months at a time, especially if you’re moving every few days, there’s this constant stream of decisions to make. And eventually… it takes its toll and you come back feeling like you need a holiday to recover from your holiday.

Have you experienced this kind of decision fatigue while travelling? I’ve definitely been there before. In fact, it’s one of the biggest reasons I prefer slow travel and spending months in one place instead.

And perhaps there, in part, lies the answer. For many, travel feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so naturally, we want to use that time “wisely,” ie, to see as much as possible. 

But I’ve often wondered… What if trying to see everything actually takes us further away from what travel is really about? Because for me, travel is less about my country count and more about understanding life somewhere else.

To see how people actually live in another coordinate of the world. What their everyday routines look like. What they believe. How society is structured and what that means in daily life. What historical events shaped the place, for better or worse. To allow yourself for a moment to wonder who you might have been had you been born there instead. Or perhaps even more importantly… To reflect on who you are in this moment, right here.

I don’t think those thoughts can arrive when you’re rushing from one place to the next. I believe they need space and come when your nervous system has had time to settle.

When you’ve already done the hard part of finding somewhere to stay and suddenly… your days no longer need to be filled and you have time. Time to even allow some days to look like not going anywhere at all. 

Time to spend an entire day at your accommodation if that’s what your body needs, ordering healthy food deliveries, having a bath, staying undressed, watching Netflix, reading and not making plans to see anything new. And most of all, not feeling guilty for it either, because you know your time isn’t running out tomorrow.

There isn’t that little voice in the back of your mind telling you that your days are numbered and therefore, you don’t feel pressured to be doing everything you can before you’re moving on to the next new place.

More recently, just last week in fact, I met another lovely lady. She’s actually one of my newsletter subscribers who reached out because she was coming to Berlin for a few days as part of her travels. (If you’d like to join the weekly letters too, you can sign up here.)

After quitting her job in New York, travelling had become her way of stepping away from a life that no longer felt right. She hoped it would give her the space to figure out what came next.

But several months into the journey, she admitted something openly: “I’m just so tired.” And went on to repeat a few things already mentioned in paragraph two.

It made me wonder if this is why travel doesn’t always bring the relief we’re hoping for. If you’re leaving a stressful environment, a toxic workplace, burnout or simply a life that no longer fits, and then travel in a way where your brain still has to stay switched on all the time (researching, planning, booking things, moving, packing and unpacking)… then perhaps your nervous system never really gets the chance to leave survival mode.

I gently suggested something: “What if you picked one place you’ve loved the most so far… and simply stayed a little longer?”

She smiled then. Because, as it turned out, it was already something she’d been feeling drawn towards.

Which brings me to one final reflection. I believe each of us has an inner guide.

An inner compass that speaks to us quietly through our feelings. Sometimes it’s excitement, sometimes it’s peace. Or sometimes it can simply be a thought that keeps returning or a conversation you overhear that makes you pay attention…

And so if you’re reading this while travelling from place to place, feeling unexpectedly depleted… Has there been a small voice quietly suggesting you slow down? To stop moving for a while? To let one place become home, if only for a month or two?

If so… Perhaps this is your permission to listen, your permission to stay.

And just in case you decide to slow down (or are just passing through)  in Paris, Berlin, Hoi An, Ubud or Oaxaca City, I’ve created a downloadable guide for each one based on the months or years I spent living in each.

The idea wasn’t simply to share my favourite cafés or hidden gems, but to save you hours of research, so you can spend less time planning and decision making… and more time simply being present where you are.