Saturday, March 07, 2009

Europe on the Slow Side

As you know, I am a big fan of traveling slow. Since my first trip to Italy ten years ago when I was introduced to the concept of agriturismos, I loved the idea of parking myself in one spot (or two, max) to explore an area more indepth, get to know the local culture and customs, and interact with the inhabitants as much as possible. It was that taste of 'living local' that inspired us to move to Italy.

The availability of agriturismo stays, vacation apartments, and villa rentals has increased substantially since then, with tons of sites offering vacation rentals directly from the owners or acting as brokers.

My friend, Pauline Kenny, took her love of traveling slow and turned her hobby into an informative website; Slow Travel helped popularize this 'new' mode of travel. She and her husband, Steve Cohen, built up the site to a major resource, not only for vacation rentals worldwide, but with indepth information for nearly every aspect of arranging, executing, and enjoying your vacation. It became a behometh site with an active, devoted traveler community. Pauline sold the site a couple years ago.

But vacation villas are in her blood, it would seem, so she just launched a new 'slow site,' this time narrowing her focus back down to vacation rentals in Europe. With Slow Europe, she is going back to the basics: where to find quality, reputable rental agencies that meet your needs; in short, it will be an informative resource site with user generated reviews.

Stop by and give it a look. Find the perfect spot for your next vacation, or contribute your own vacation rental reviews. She welcomes feedback, so submit your comments; or, just say hello...Pauline is a friendly gal!

3 comments:

S.R. Piccoli said...

Hi Valerie, I wonder whether or not your friend knows she is a woman with very influential connections … I mean, I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) shirk the moral obligation to visit her website, soon after having been kindly suggested to do so! And now that I have been doing what I have been told to do, I’m glad to tell you that I really enjoyed her site, to the point that I decided to link to it from my blog. I think this might not be as useful for Pauline as it is for some of my readers. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Pauline Kenny said...

Thanks for the blog post about Slow Europe! Valerie helped us with parts of the site - it was a group effort.

It is great to have a website again - and especially about a topic that I love so much.

Rob - what a great blog you have! I linked to it from Slow Europe Resources.

Valerie said...

Hi Rob - me? Influential? Wow, thanks! It's a nice site, huh?

Pauline - Glad to see you back and active online where you belong!