Unplanned Days and Slow Travel

I love the term slow travel.

I have been reading about it a lot on many of the travel blogs I obsessively visit.

My memory of travel was always very structured and planned. Each day was filled with activities to get the most from each hour while away.

We stayed at hotels and moved from placed to place and ate out every meal.

We have purposely not planned the days activities while on our trip over the next year.  We want to plan as we go.

This is true of our recent trip to Hawaii-Oahu.

The first day we got here, my son Christian woke up at 8, booked himself a surf lesson from 9:00-11:00, met us on the beach to snorkel,  and then had lunch on the beach.  Then…

He came to us and said, “There’s nothing to do.”

Um. What?!

At home his life is so structured.  School. Soccer. Homework. Bed.  Weekends are Skate Park, Soccer Games, and Friend Hangouts.

Here – there is space. And time.  Nothing planned. Hours to just be.

There is nowhere to rush off to or from.

My kids aren’t used to it.  What now? Where next? What’s the plan?

We are not in a hotel-so there is no need to get out of the room. We can just chill.

We can go to the local markets and cook the local food.

We can sleep in.

And we can read smut and talk and sit in the hot tub for hours if we want.

Today, the the plan is to do nothing and then to rest.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll do more.

Maybe not.