Travel Isn't Research Until You Slow Down
Travel becomes research when you slow down long enough to understand how a place works, not just what it looks like.
Writers often tell themselves they’re traveling for research. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it’s also an excuse to leave—an entirely reasonable one.
The problem isn’t the desire to travel. The problem is mistaking movement for understanding.
Research doesn’t happen at speed. It happens when you stay long enough to notice how a place actually works: how people move through it, how daily routines are structured, what feels ordinary to those who live there and unfamiliar to those who don’t.
A place doesn’t reveal itself all at once. It resists explanation. It requires patience.
This is why so many writers return from trips with pages of notes and very little clarity. They’ve collected impressions, but they haven’t yet developed orientation. They know what they saw, but not how it fits together.
Slowing down isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing fewer things long enough for patterns to emerge. Walking the same street at different times of day. Sitting in the same place without needing to document it. Letting confusion last a little longer than is comfortable.
When travel becomes research, writing changes. It stops trying to summarize and starts responding. It becomes less declarative and more precise. Less about what a place “is” and more about how it behaves.
That’s the difference between visiting and studying a place.
And it’s the difference between writing that gestures toward authenticity and writing that actually earns it.