There were similar findings in Abta’s Travel in 2022 report, which showed 61% of people are now more determined to travel more sustainably, while more than a third already plan to fly less.

Although reducing air travel has an enormous environmental impact – giving up two short-haul flights is better for the climate than spending a year as a vegan, for example – the real joys of flight-free travel lie in the slower travel experience it yields. 

Slow travel is a mindset. It’s about travelling overland, staying in locally owned accommodation, stopping en route and taking time to get to know a place, its food, history, culture and its people. It’s generally about optimising your travel for enjoyment over speed. 

Having never owned a car myself, I’ve always taken a multi-stop, multi-modal approach to my trips (hello trains, ferries, open-top buses and lovely accommodation). I founded Byway during the first lockdown to create the technology that would make my kind of travel possible at scale. 

Crucially, that doesn’t just mean creating our own slow travel company, but partnering with other travel companies to help them offer slow travel product to their customers. 

Travel companies are coming under increasing environmental and consumer pressure to offer great flight-free product, and because slow travel is often richer in experience, it’s commercially attractive too – it’s a product customers are willing to pay for. 

Byway’s been up and running for two-and-a-half years, and our growth has taken even me by surprise; 2022 has so far been 14 times bigger than 2021 in terms of total booking value, while 94% of returning travellers say they would recommend us when they return from their trips. 

Encouragingly, 61% of customers booking with Byway “always or often” fly for their holidays so there’s a real behaviour shift under way too. 

Alongside the tide of consumer demand, we’re also seeing downward pressure on short-haul flights from governments, such as France’s ban on domestic flights if the equivalent journey by train takes less than two-and-a-half hours, and there’s been action in Austria and the Netherlands too. 

However, even with this bi-directional pressure, offering flight-free journeys remains a challenge for many travel companies – knowing where to go once you’re off the beaten path; how to get there by train, boat and bus; where’s great to stop on the way and for how long; where you can leave your bags when you pause en route; what accommodation is locally owned and within a short walk of the station; which passes and tickets allow for flexibility and delays, and so on.

The depth of expertise required is intimidating. And, as we know only too well from our early days at Byway, without the technology, it’s a real mission at scale. Slow travel is the direction we’re all heading and is clearly in growing demand – our new partnership with Intrepid Travel to help their travellers with their overland journeys is testament to that.

The challenge, ironically, is now to speed up that journey. Anyone wishing to speed up their transition to slow travel can reach us on partnerships@byway.travel.

Cat Jones is founder and chief executive of Byway Travel