I’ve always loved the idea of slow travel.
The slow travel movement emphasizes meaning, connection, and sustainability rather than checking items off a bucket list, and more and more people are embracing the idea of staying longer in one place in order to immerse themselves in a culture. And while I adhere to the ideals of slow travel, I think I’m also bad at actually traveling slowly.
In 2023, I tried what I envisioned to be a sample of slow traveling in Mexico to see if it was a lifestyle that I wanted to adopt long-term. But staying in one city for two weeks resulted in me feeling like I had time to cram in every possible activity that the city had to offer and not slowing down for one second as I tried to do so. I moved accommodations 3 times in those 2 weeks, and I rushed around just as quickly as I do when I stay in a new city for 3 days. So, I knew I needed to try the experiment again.
When I tried slow travel in Mexico, I was in a city that was new to me. When I decided I’d come spend part of the summer in Montreal, I wondered if an attempt at slow travel would feel different in a city I was already familiar with.
This is the 4th time I’ve visited Montreal. And though my relationship to this city has evolved since that first visit, my reason for coming here has remained consistent. Montreal has always, for me, been a place where I come to return to myself.
Some background on my relationship with Montreal:
I visited Montreal for the first time in 2017 during one of the worst periods of anxiety I’ve ever experienced. Trump’s first term had recently started, and I’d been living in DC in the heart of the chaos. My job contract had ended for a job I spent a year hating, and I had no job prospects that would allow me to stay in the city. I was having panic attacks so frequently that it was nearly debilitating, and I was catastrophizing things so egregiously that they would sound like a joke if I confessed them to you now. After nothing else helped, I hoped a change of scenery would snap me out of it. And it did.
I spent 3 or 4 nights in Montreal in a downtown hotel, and I don’t even recall doing anything noteworthy. I think I sat silently in a hotel room reading and doing a lot of aimless wandering. Small things felt jarring. I remember how strange it felt to be in a city that looked similar to American cities but where the language was different. I saw the main tourist attractions, talked to no one, and felt myself calming down. After those few days, I felt more like myself than I had in months.
The circumstances for my second visit to Montreal were even more tumultuous. It was 2022, and I’d quit my job and moved out of my apartment to take the trip I’d been planning for years, and then I panicked in the airport and bailed on the flight. I’ve written about that experience a lot. The stress I’d somehow been able to contain during the previous 3 years (which consisted of my mom’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, losing all 3 of my remaining grandparents, losing 2 beloved dogs, an awful breakup, and a global pandemic) crashed down on me and left me feeling paralyzed. I knew that traveling was the only thing that might help, but I couldn’t bring myself to take a flight. So I took another train to Montreal and flew around on a flying trapeze and after a week, I felt capable of getting on a plane.
I will never stop emphasizing to people how drastically travel has helped me with my anxiety. There is nothing that frees me of it so effectively and completely.
The third time I came to Montreal was to show the city to Michael as part of a larger East Coast trip. We had a vague idea of living in a different city each month for a year, and I wanted Montreal to be on the list. That plan never panned out, but I never stopped dreaming of doing something like it.
Flash forward to today. After a year of enormous loss, grief, and uncertainty, it felt right to come to Montreal, as much for the city as to return to myself. But I didn’t want to come for another brief visit—I wanted to try slow travel again.
Slow travel in a place I’d visited multiple times meant that I didn’t feel the usual urgency to see all the top attractions—I’ve already seen them. It meant instead that I could come focus on activities and experiences that would require more time to take advantage of.
I’ve been in Montreal for a month now, and I’m not sure if I’m much better at slow travel. But I know that my relationship to this city has evolved. On this trip, I’m staying in a house in a residential area where construction wakes us up every morning. It doesn’t feel obnoxious though—it just feels like regular life, something you’re immune to when staying in accommodations designed for tourism.
When I decided to come stay in Montreal this summer, my first priority was to get here in time for the circus festival. I saw the circus festival in Montreal for the first time in 2022 when I stumbled upon it in the street. I didn’t understand what this strange utopia was where aerial artists were performing for free in the parks and streets, and I spent the 3 days I was visiting wishing I didn’t have to leave.
This time I got to be here for all 11 days of the festival, and I’m still awed that this exists and how fully Montreal embraces this community. I met fascinating people from all over the world who come to town for the festival every year. So many things in the world feel bleak right now, and it’s hard to feel optimistic about society. But being here where creativity, individuality, strength, and expression are celebrated in the streets reminds me to feel hopeful. If a more inspiring, inclusive, and joyful event exists, I don’t know it.
Since I arrived, I’ve been taking at least 2 circus classes each week, and my classmates and coaches know my name. I’ve gone tango dancing a few times, and even though the venues I’ve been to have all been different, I keep running into people I’ve met previously. I live in a very close community of other slow travelers who treat this city as their home instead of a vacation destination.
This time, I haven’t been to many of the top tourist attractions that I’ve seen on previous visits. I haven’t climbed Mont Royal or gone to Olympic Park or gone inside Notre Dame. Instead, I’ve become a regular at a few coffee shops and I grab pre-packaged food from the closest grocery store when I’m in a rush. I know my way around neighborhoods I had never heard of on previous visits. It’s a less glamorous way to visit a city, and a far more personal one. And growing familiarity with this place hasn’t diminished its magic. It’s further confirmed it.
Confession: I don’t think Montreal is particularly beautiful. Parts of it are pretty, of course, but when I think of Montreal, I don’t think of the cityscape or architecture. What makes me love it isn’t tangible. And it might be easy for a tourist looking for a best-of list or the Instagrammable sites to miss what makes it special.
Montreal doesn’t care about anyone’s approval. It isn’t trying to be beautiful. That’s part of what I love about the spirit of this place and its people. They are unapologetically who they are, and they aren’t interested in conforming to your polished vision of what they could be.
I’ve fallen in love with many cities based on a first impression. But loving a city after getting to know its nuances is a more meaningful thing.
