实战口语情景对话 第1051期:Slow Travel 慢旅行

Todd: So Dan we're talking about your travels and living overseas, and you have a concept you call slow travel. Can you explain what slow travel is?
托德：丹，我们来谈谈你在海外旅行和生活的经历，你的观念是“慢旅行”。你能解释一下什么是慢旅行吗？

Dan: Yeah, I mean especially maybe because I'm a blogger, we're always seeking to define things in unique ways. And there's a lot of terms out there. There's expat; people that have left their native country. There's backpacker, which is someone who tries to keep their cost very low and they're continually moving from place to place. There's flash packer, which is a term that means you still have income from somewhere and you have more tech and toys, and you stay at maybe nicer hotels. But what I did was always a little bit different, which is I would go and get long term leases or medium term leases at apartments. So I would go and get a house or an apartment in a place for anywhere from one to six months, and enjoy what it feels like to actually live somewhere. And that to me is so exciting, you know. Although the sights and everything are cool, and hanging out with tourists can be fun, I much prefer to go down to the local café, open up my laptop, talk to the people that are working there, and really get a sense for what it's like to live in a city. And over the course of my career what that's looked like is you really develop a deep connection with the places that you live in. You might hire people there. You have really good friends there. One of the downsides of being a tourist is that you never really can develop friendships. And so what I found is that I go back to revisit a lot of the places that I once lived because I have lifelong friendships there. So that to me has really been the benefit of slow travel and I have a theory about friendship. I think, you know, really you can't go to place for just one month. People won't invest their time in you. So if at least you're going to stay in a place for three to four months, I think that's sort of the turning point with a lot of people and they'll say, "Hey, yeah, you know what, let's go try to be friends. Let's go out and do something together."
丹：我想可能是因为我是一名博主，所以我总是试图用独特的方式去定义事情。其实有很多种说法。比如移居国外的人，就是那些离开自己祖国的人。还有背包客，他们把自己的花费压的很低，这样就他们就能不断地从一个地方去往另一个地方。新背包客，这是指那些有收入来源、有科技设备而且住在较好酒店里的人。而我的方式有一些不同，我会长期租赁或是较长时间租赁公寓。我会在一个地方找间房子或公寓，住一到六个月的时间，享受那里的生活氛围。对我来说这令我非常兴奋。虽然四处观光也很好，和游客们一起四处游玩可能有很多乐趣，可是我更喜欢找家当地的咖啡厅坐下来，打开我的笔记本电脑，和那里的工作人员聊天，真正了解生活在那座城市的感受。在我的职业生涯中，我和我生活的地方建立了非常深的联系。我可以在那些地方雇佣工人。也可以交好朋友。做为游客来说，其中一个不利的方面是你永远不能真正的发展友谊。我发现我会回到我曾经生活过的地方，因为我有朋友在那里。我认为这是“慢旅行”的优点，我有我自己对友谊的看法。我认为你不能只在一个地方待一个月的时间，因为时间太短，别人不会把他们的时间投资在你身上。我认为至少要在一个地方待上三到四个月的时间，这是一个转折点，这段时间过后许多人会和你说：“嘿，我们试着做朋友吧。我们一起出去做点什么吧。”

Todd: So Dan, you're talking about slow travel and you're saying that basically you go and just live in a place. And I think a lot of people would be really hesitant to do that. I mean, that sounds exciting but it's like a really big step. How would you convince somebody to do this type of lifestyle?
托德：丹，你刚刚介绍了慢旅行，你会在一个地方生活一段时间。我认为有许多人会犹豫要不要这样做。这听起来的确令人兴奋，但是那是很重要的一步。你要怎么说服其他人接受这种生活方式？

Dan: Well, the first thing is to get connected on the blogosphere with a lot of other people who are doing it because I think that once you see other people doing it, the mystery comes away and you realize hey, this is something that I could do. This is achievable for me. So I call that like a precedent case analysis. If you can see some other guys doing it and you can relate with them, not such a big deal anymore. The next thing is like I always try to go somewhere where I have a project. I think it's a great way to really get engaged because it's so easy just to go to a place, get a short term apartment, and then go to Starbucks, and then that could just be your life. Whereas, you know, when we came here to Bali, we decided that we're going to set up a house and we're going to invite interns over. And we're going to meet entrepreneurs from all around the world and that's why we're going to Bali because Bali is the place that everybody wants to go. If you mention Bali to somebody, they're like, "I would love to go to Bali someday." And that's great for meeting people so that's why we came here. My last location in the Philippines, I went there with a project to hire people because I knew it was a great place to hire people. A place before that in Vietnam, I decided that I wanted to do investments in Vietnam. It's a great place to put capital. Of course, that was before the financial crisis so that didn't work out for so long. But I find it the idea of having a project gets you engaged. For me as a business person, I've never gone somewhere and not hire somebody there. And that act in and of itself helps me to get engaged. Now, if you're not a business person, a lot of people would come to a place like Bali and say, "I'm going to learn how to surf or I'm going to learn how to cook local Indonesian food or I'm going to learn the language." Those kinds of projects I think are really useful for the slow travel concept. And they're a unique opportunity because if you're a tourist, you don't have time to set up a business or to learn the language and that's the unique opportunity for the slow traveler.
丹：首先你要接触很多采取这种做法的人聚集的博客圈，因为一旦你看到其他人这样做，那那种神秘感就会消失，你会意识到，其实我也可以这样做。我也可以做到。我认为那有点像案例分析。如果你看到其他人这样做了，那你可以和他们联系，那不再是大不了的事情。其次，我一直尝试去我有项目的地方。我认为这是让我参与其中的重要方式，去其他地方很方便，可以租个短期公寓，可以去星巴克，然后照常享受生活。我们来到巴厘岛以后，决定成立个公司，而且打算招实习生。我们需要和世界各地的企业家举行会谈，所以我们才会选择巴厘岛，因为巴厘岛是所有人都想来的地方。如果你和别人聊天时提到巴厘岛，那他们会说“我也希望有一天能去巴厘岛”。巴厘岛很适合作为同客户见面的地方，所以我们才会选择这里。我在来巴厘岛之前在菲律宾待过一段时间，当时我在那里有个项目，我需要员工，因为我知道在菲律宾雇佣员工很方便。去菲律宾之前我在越南，当时我决定在越南投资。越南是适合投入资金的地方。当然，那是在金融危机之前，所以那并没有持续很长时间。不过我发现做项目是让你参与其中的好方法。我是商人，我有一些从来没去过的地方，没有在一些地方雇佣过工人。这本身就让我想尝试。如果你不是商人，那很多来到巴厘岛的人的想法是，“我要学习如何冲浪或者我要学习如何烹饪印尼当地美食，或者我要学习当地的语言”。我认为这类计划有益于慢旅行这一概念。这是一种独特的机会，因为如果你是游客，那你是没时间建立企业或学习语言的，所以这对慢旅行者来说是独特的机会。

Todd: I'm sold.
托德：你说服我了。