“I have some bad news,” my British tour operator told me as I prepared to return to North Korea four months ago. “The DPRK1) is really short of basic materials. You’re going to have to take your own snacks and water. Even soap.” Then he brightened up. “The good news is that it’s still quite hard to get online there and most mobile phones don’t work. So you’ll be free for as long as you’re there!”

“我有些壞消息，”四個月前，在我準備重返朝鮮之際，安排我旅行的英國旅行社工作人員告訴我說，“朝鮮的基本物資非常匱乏，你得自備些食物和水，甚至還有香皂。”說完，他又面露喜色：“好消息是，那里上網仍然很難，而且多數手機也用不了。所以你只要在那兒待著，就不缺空閑!”

It wasn’t the first time of late I’ve encountered such wisdom. In Namibia a year earlier, I realised that one of the sovereign2) blessings of the place is that, in nine days and nights, I had barely gone online and had made and received exactly one phone call (to my wife, to remind her when I would be coming home). And, of course, in the presence of desert-adapted rhinos3) and sand dunes the height of skyscrapers, I had never begun to miss the tiny screen.

這不是我近來第一次見識這樣的智慧了。一年前在納米比亞我就意識到，身在那個地方一個最大的好處是，在九天九夜的時間里，我幾乎沒上過網，而且只接打過一個電話(是打給我妻子的，為了提醒她我回家的時間)。當然，那里有適應沙漠環境的犀牛和高度堪比摩天大樓的沙丘可賞，我一點也沒有想念手機那塊小小的屏幕。

More and more people are spending hundreds of pounds a night to stay in “black-hole resorts4),” one of whose main attractions is that you hand over your smartphone and tablet on arrival. In a world where the human race accumulates more information every five minutes than exists in the entire US Library of Congress, emptiness and silence are the new luxuries.

越來越多的人一個晚上花幾百英鎊在“黑洞度假區”度假。這類度假區的一大主要吸引力在于，客人一到就必須交出智能手機和平板電腦。在這個人類每五分鐘積累的信息量要比整個美國國會圖書館館藏還多的世界里，空閑和清靜成了新的奢侈品。

Welcome, in short, to “slow travel,” which comes to seem ever more tempting in an age of acceleration. This can take the form of simply unplugging; but it also speaks for the special, everyday allure of seeing somewhere on foot, of going to one place (and not 10) in 14 days, and sometimes of going somewhere to do nothing at all. This used to be known as idling, but in a multi-tasking world, in which we seem to be living at a pace dictated by machines, going at human speed suddenly begins to look like sanity and freedom.

簡言之，歡迎加入“慢旅行”。在這個加速運轉的時代，慢旅行似乎正變得越發具有吸引力。慢旅行的形式可以是簡單的斷網關機，但也可以是日常生活里一些別致的吸引人的活動，比如走路去看風景，花兩周游一個(而非十個)地方，有時還包括到一個地方無所事事地待著。這一度被視為是游手好閑之舉，但在這個一心多用的世界中，我們生活的步伐似乎全被機器操控，保持常人的節奏忽然開始顯得明智而自由。

I experienced my own first taste of slow travel 23 years ago, when I checked into a monastery5), of all places—even though years of enforced chapel6) at school had left me all but allergic to church services. It didn’t matter. The chance to take walks, to forget about phone calls, to sit and just catch my breath, so invigorated7) me that when I moved to Japan, I took a two-room flat that had something of the quiet of a retreat house.

我第一次切身體驗慢旅行是在23年前，當時我從眾多地方里選擇了一座修道院棲身—盡管讀書時多年的強制性教堂禮拜已讓我對那套東西幾乎心生厭惡。這沒關系。那次經歷讓我有機會悠然漫步，忘掉電話，靜坐，調整呼吸。我感到精神無比煥發，以至于后來旅居日本，我挑了一如休養所般幽靜的兩居室公寓安家。

But I also experienced a sense of freedom when I arrived in Zurich, to find I could get everywhere by easy and frequent tram. I’ve known friends take tours on bicycles, or long train rides so they can simply read and write and chat with strangers. I’ve seen them go skiing in Kashmir, where there’s just one chairlift, or fishing in Scotland or Montana to catch some stillness. Even Ritz-Carltons8) and Intercontinentals9) now offer “digital detox10)” packages to help open your eyes and ears to the wonders around you.

不過，當我到達蘇黎世，發現自己可以乘坐方便頻繁的電車到達任何地方，我同樣感受到一種自由。我認識一些朋友，他們騎自行車或乘坐長途火車出游，這樣就能盡情地閱讀、寫作或是同陌生人攀談。我見到過他們去克什米爾滑雪，那里的滑雪場只配一個升降椅;也見到過他們去蘇格蘭或美國的蒙大拿釣魚，只為感受一些寧靜。如今，就連麗思-卡爾頓酒店和洲際酒店也推出了“戒除數碼產品”的套餐服務，幫你打開眼睛和耳朵，發現身邊的種種美好。

The essence of holidays, and therefore travel, is to get what you don’t get enough of the rest of the time. And for more and more of us, this isn’t movement, diversion or stimulation; we’ve got plenty of that in the palms of our hands. It’s the opposite: the chance to make contact with loved ones, to be in one place and to enjoy the intimacy and sometimes life-changing depth of talking to one person for five—or 15—hours.

假日的本質，進言之，旅行的本質，是獲取你平時無福盡情消受的東西。對于越來越多的人來說，要享受的不是奔波、消遣或刺激—這些我們已從掌上設備中獲得了很多，而是與之相反的東西：與摯愛的人接觸的機會，待在一個地方的機會，跟一個人聊上五個或15個小時、享受那種親密深談的機會—這種深談有時可以改變人的一生。

Of course, lying on a beach or in a hammock11) has always offered something of a respite12) from the rat race13). But as I hear of westerners walking to Mount Kailash, or a film producer going to the Seychelles just to read books with his daughter, as I see how the appeal of a long walk in the woods is not just the woods but the lack of all signals, I suspect that the world has reversed direction since the time, not so long ago, when jumbo jets14) and Concordes15) first promised to whisk16) us across the planet at supersonic speeds. Concorde, after all, is gone now; but near where I live, in the old Japanese capital of Nara, there are more and more rickshaws17) in view—to cater to the very people who patented the idea of “Six Cities in Four Days.”

當然，躺在沙灘上或吊床上總能使人從每日的奔忙中得到一些喘息。然而，當我聽說有些西方人徒步前往岡仁波齊峰，或是一位電影制片人去趟塞舌爾只為陪女兒看看書，當我發現長久漫步林間的趣味不僅在于林地本身，還在于那里沒有任何信號的打擾，我不由得猜想，自不算太久以前，巨型噴氣式飛機和協和式飛機第一次承諾將以超音速載我們環游地球以來，世道已經逆轉。如今，協和式飛機終究還是銷聲匿跡了，而在我的住地附近，在日本的古都奈良，倒是看到越來越多的人力車—它們的服務對象正是當初炮制出“六城四日游”點子的那些人。