A year or so ago I started following a Facebook blogger, John Andersen. (UPDATE JULY 2025: John no longer publishes a blog, and has left Facebook.)

I was originally drawn in by one of his posts from Dresden, Germany, shared into the Senior Nomads FB group, in which he described in detail a single painting hanging in one of Dresden’s museums.

His writing was eloquent; full of the kind of elegant prose that we usually only encounter in literary classics. I was enamoured enough to start following his blog.

In the time since doing that, I’ve learned quite a lot about John, since while he is most often introspective, he doesn’t shy away from sharing his background or his personal opinions. I’ve been impressed with how he finds ways to address thorny subjects with both discretion and honesty. He’s obviously writing for himself, as a way to attain personal growth. While our blog is very different from his, I’ve taken inspiration from his writing when trying to “slow down” a bit.

John, an American ex-military man, and his English wife, Mandy, represent a true partnership – constantly learning from each other, and sometimes checking each other’s biases. Would that countries could do the same without the rhetoric and resentment that we so often see in international politics.

I digress.

The point I wanted to share was that John and Mandy travel full-time, but as “slo-mads”. They generally only visit 4 places per year, staying put in each for 3 months. In that travel style, it makes sense to buy not only things like transit passes, but also annual museum or art gallery passes, and theatre subscriptions. There’s no reason to rush through a gallery; once you realize you can go back as many times as you’d like, you can spend an hour just staring at one painting, or take a sketchbook and draw a vase, or even “waste” time in the gallery’s coffee shop! John truly does a “deep dive” into their destinations, whether that means learning the family history of the local shop owner, or the provenance of a piece of porcelain.

Our recently completed world cruise was the opposite of slo-madding, and we’re ready to decrease the pace … a bit.

We’ll be officially in Vancouver for the next 6 months, although there are several short escapes scheduled during that period, beginning with a mother-son trip to Germany with our youngest son, a cruise to Alaska with our grandson, a girls’ trip to Vancouver Island, and a European river cruise – all before a week on the Nile in December. The main focus of our long stay, though, will be just enjoying what Vancouver has to offer: music, theatre, museums, galleries, parks, and coffee shops.

Of course, I’ll also be planning 2026’s slow travel – which right now I think may include a John Andersen-inspired long stay in Dresden.

Deep dives beckon!

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