It was a sunny day with salty summer breezes billowing in from the South Pacific, the surf pounding a slow tympani backbeat. I was sinking into a profoundly peaceful vacation in Christchurch, on New Zealand’s South Island, snuggled up with a book in the tussock-covered dunes on a deserted beach. A Canadian visitor to my lair informed me that I was part of a new movement: Slow Travel. This means settling into one place, perhaps taking a few short exploratory trips. Or just taking another nap.
After arriving in Christchurch, I had drifted into a daydreamy daily routine of reading books from the local library and bookstore, cooking interesting meals, wandering along the ocean’s edge, and of course, there were those naps. Jet lag was not really an issue—it was just tomorrow in New Zealand, plus or minus an hour or two. I took long bike rides along beach and estuary bike trails that stretched for miles, filled with birds I had never seen before.
Don’t misunderstand—I like seeing the wide world as much as anyone, but I’m done with the one-city-a-day kind of trip. I’m not a large-group tour candidate. I like to make an inconspicuous footprint when I travel, absorbing and blending in so I can see what life is like for the people around me who are not performing for tourists. I’m often taken for German or Dutch when I travel, which I count as a terrific success. But in New Zealand, I could easily be a native, so secret reconnaissance was easier.
A friend housed me across from the beach in the charming South Brighton neighborhood of Chistchurch, where I could enjoy February’s late summer weather. The house was built fifty years ago when the spot was desolate and people thought his mother mad for buying property there. It began as a vacation “batch”—a small house that was no more than a glorified family camping spot.
A few incarnations later, the updated home is plugged into a habitat for seagulls and tiny yellow penguins, for young moms walking babies, for seniors walking and biking to do errands, and for earnest surfers who only have to cross the road to find the perfect wave. Upscale it is not, although recent ex-pat purchases of real estate may change that.
It’s hard for an American Midwesterner to think “February” while Kiwi kids are starting school for the fall and tiger lilies are in full bloom. My personal benchmark for a really successful vacation is totally losing track of time. It was easy to do here. Raspberries were in season. How could it be snowing in Chicago? How could Portland be in its chilling monsoon season?
North Americans are discovering summer Down Under, including New Zealand’s vibrant wineries and heart-melting cheeses. It’s Wisconsin meets Napa Valley. New Zealand’s economy was put on the map by the 1850 invention of refrigerated shipping. Suddenly tender New Zealand lamb was on dinner tables in London and Santiago and San Francisco, and these pathways are followed now by the flourishing new wine industry. The Internet draws wine tourists to sample the economy’s new liquid gold rush.
While travel to many world destinations has barely reached pre-9/11 levels, the cognoscenti quietly plans trips Down Under. No one’s mad at New Zealand, except perhaps the odd Australian who may have been one-upped in the constant jokes flying back and forth across the Tasman Sea.
Neighborhood cats wander in through open doors, milk is still delivered to homes by ruddy lads in shorts, and drying clothes outside in the whipping wind seems to be a civil right. There were three entrepreneurial young girls, probably eight or nine years old, who for several days set up a stand on the sidewalk near my house. One day they were selling bunches of flowers from their garden, the next day Kool-Aid. I felt like I had time-traveled back to my childhood.
