Spring 2026

Last Thanksgiving, I traveled with my husband and two daughters to northeastern Italy. I deliberately chose late November to visit, because I knew the region would be relatively free of other tourists (and I revel in moody weather). I booked an apartment in Venice’s Cannaregio neighborhood to get a feel for how people live in a place so dependent on—and challenged by—tourism.

We shopped at the local grocer and outdoor markets and walked many miles daily, venturing to the outer islands by vaporetto. I made only a few bookings ahead of time: train tickets to Trieste and Padua for day trips; a handful of midday restaurant reservations. The cadence was less frenetic than on some of our other family vacations, when I’d tried to pack too much in. Though I had more pinned locations on my map than we could ever visit, by the end of our time I felt content about how we’d spent our week. I left Italy with a renewed appreciation for looser, calmer trips.

This issue is dedicated to slow travel—increasingly appealing in today’s hyper-connected world, in which time has become the biggest luxury. Slow travel can mean different things: decreasing the pace; staying longer in one place; allowing for serendipity instead of following a strict itinerary; traveling by foot and public transportation; and supporting locally owned businesses.

In these pages, we cross continents in search of deeper experiences, whether that means reckoning with overlooked stories on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail or traversing Japan’s Noto Peninsula. In “The Busy Person’s Guide to Slow Travel,” we share 20 bookable trips from the U.K. to Montana. Elsewhere in the issue, photographer Gilleam Trapenberg, a native of Curaçao, turns his lens to the Caribbean island’s quieter side.

I hope these stories inspire you to slow down and experience more on your future travels, both near and far.

Travel well,
Julia Cosgrove
Editor in Chief