50 countries and counting, she now finds value in slow travel

September 9, 2026 - 06:02

For years, Macie Strum measured her life in passport stamps. She chased the number, hitting 50 countries before she turned 30. Social media made it worse. Every bio she saw bragged about a higher count, and she felt like she was falling behind in a race nobody actually defined. But somewhere around trip number 45, the thrill started to fade. She realized she could not remember what she ate in Lisbon or the name of the guesthouse owner in Hanoi. The numbers looked good on paper, but the memories were blurry.

So she stopped counting. Now, Strum says she finds real value in slow travel. Instead of hopping between three cities in a week, she stays in one place for a month. She rents an apartment, shops at the local market, and learns the bus routes. She has started saying no to bucket-list checkmarks and yes to sitting in a park with no plan. The shift did not happen overnight. It took a failed itinerary in Japan, where she tried to see too much in too little time, to make her admit that speed was killing the experience.

Strum is not alone. A growing number of travelers are ditching the country-count game. They are tired of the pressure to post from every landmark and the guilt of leaving a place without really knowing it. Slow travel is not about being lazy. It is about being present. For Strum, that means revisiting places she already loved instead of chasing new ones. She went back to a small town in Portugal three times last year. Each visit felt deeper than any new country ever did. She now tells friends that the goal is not to see the world, but to feel it. And that takes time, not just a tally.