How a slow-travel platform is bringing flight-free travel into the mainstream.
Cat Jones’s own flight-free family holidays inspired her to launch Byway in 2020, which offers holidays by train, bus and ferry, with a unique online tool to organise a trip from start to finish. Here, she tells us why slow travel is the best way to have a sustainable, fuss-free family holiday…
Cat Jones’s top 5 tips for flight-free family summer holidays:
- Try to incorporate a sleeper train. It’s a wonderful way to travel, kids love it, and you’ll be saving on a night’s accommodation.
- Plan just a little every day, don’t squeeze in too much and be flexible. Travelling slower is a great way to cultivate a sense of adventure. So perhaps plan one highlight a day and focus on that, leaving the rest of the time for exploration and spontaneity.
- Be well prepared. Make sure you pack lots of little activities and deploy different things at different times – colouring books, audio books, snacks, drinks.
- Get off the beaten path. Don’t just stick to places you’ve heard of. It’s often the smaller, less well-known destinations that will create that holiday magic.
- Stay in locally-owned places and try to make sure you’re supporting businesses where the money will stay in the community you’re visiting. Look out for ways to connect with local hosts and take the time to make that local connection.
- Prioritise special journeys, even if they take a bit longer. For example, that ferry might take a detour but has incredible views, or the local hop-on hop-off train is a better choice than rushing through a landscape on a TGV.
- Find out more about Byway’s flight-free holidays.