There was a time when I thought traveling meant seeing as much as possible.
Another village. Another landmark. Another place to check off the list.
But somewhere along the way, the way I travel changed. I stopped wanting to simply see a destination. I wanted to know what it felt like to be there.
And Provence reminded me exactly why.
Four Nights in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
We began with four nights in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, at the charming Hôtel Gounod.
Over the years, I’ve learned that where I stay can completely change the way I experience a destination. I don’t need the grandest hotel. I want character. I want warmth. I want a place that begins to feel a little like home.
Saint-Rémy gave us that.
We wandered through the farmers market, explored the village, ate local food and visited Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, where Vincent van Gogh spent a year of his life and created some of his most recognized works.
We also biked through the Provençal countryside. There’s something very different about seeing a place from a bicycle. You’re moving slowly enough to notice things. The landscape isn’t simply passing by through a car window. You can stop. Look around.
There was no need to hurry.
And that became a recurring theme throughout this trip.
Seeing Another Side of Marseille
One of our days took us out of the quiet countryside and into Marseille — and we explored it in a vintage car.
Along the way, we learned about the history of the city and traveled through neighborhoods I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own.
Marseille wasn’t the perfectly polished version of Provence I had imagined.
And I liked that.
There was graffiti throughout some of the neighborhoods, but as we learned more about the city, I began looking at it differently. The street art, the older buildings, the port and the layers of history all seemed to coexist.
Marseille had an edge to it. It had character.
And sometimes those are the places I remember most. Not necessarily the places that are perfectly beautiful, but the places that make me curious.
A Day at Château La Coste
We devoted an entire day to Château La Coste.
This wasn’t somewhere I wanted to squeeze between two other stops. It deserved a day.
We arranged transportation there and back so we could simply enjoy the property without thinking about driving or where we needed to go next. We walked the grounds, enjoyed a wine tasting and ended with dinner at Francis Mallmann’s restaurant.
Wine. Art. Architecture. Food. Provence.
And nowhere else we needed to be.
Those are often my favorite travel days.
And Then We Arrived in Lourmarin
After Saint-Rémy, we transferred to Lourmarin for another four nights. This part of our trip was intentionally different.
We stayed in the most charming Airbnb right in the heart of the village. Vines covered the exterior, and from our little place, the village seemed to unfold below us.
It wasn’t simply somewhere to sleep. For four days, it felt like our little home in Provence.
And the thing I remember most wasn’t an excursion. It wasn’t something I had researched. It wasn’t even on our itinerary.
It was the church bells.
I can still remember hearing them through the open balcony doors. The curtains would gently sway with the breeze as the sound drifted inside.
There was something about that moment — the bells, the breeze, those curtains moving in the open doorway — that made me feel as though, even if only temporarily, I wasn’t simply visiting Lourmarin.
I was living there.
It’s funny how travel does that. We spend so much time researching what we’re going to see and do, yet what we remember most are the things we never planned at all.
A sound. A breeze. Church bells somewhere in the distance.
Those are the moments I seem to carry home with me.
The Beauty of Staying Put
While staying in Lourmarin, we didn’t rent a car. We didn’t spend our days driving from one famous Provençal village to another simply because someone had told us they were all “must-sees.”
Instead, we stayed.
We walked to breakfast, to lunch, to dinner. We visited the farmers market and the local château. We wandered through the village and stopped when something caught our attention.
And sometimes, we did absolutely nothing particularly noteworthy. Looking back, that may have been the most noteworthy part of all.
There can be tremendous pressure when we travel to make every day count. Especially when we’ve flown thousands of miles to get somewhere.
We’re here. We may never come back. We have to see everything.
I used to understand that feeling. But I’d rather remember what it felt like to wake up in Lourmarin than remember six villages I rushed through in one day. I’d rather know where I liked to have breakfast. Sit a little longer over lunch. Hear the church bells through an open window.
That is what slow travel has come to mean to me.
It isn’t about doing nothing. It’s about giving yourself enough time to notice where you are.
Finding a Home Away From Home
It’s also why I’ve become so particular about where I stay. My accommodation isn’t simply where I leave my suitcase while I’m out sightseeing.
It’s part of the journey.
Give me a small hotel with character. A vine-covered Airbnb in the middle of a village. A balcony where I can have coffee in the morning. An open window with curtains blowing in the breeze.
I don’t need to actually live there. But for a few days, I want to imagine that I do.
Maybe that’s why, when I think about Provence now, I don’t remember it as a list of places we visited. I remember a bicycle in the countryside. The farmers market. Marseille from the seat of a vintage car. A beautiful meal at Château La Coste.
And I remember walking out the door and realizing that, for the next few days, we didn’t have anywhere else we needed to be.
Perhaps that’s what I’ve been searching for in my travels all along. Not simply another destination. Not another list of things I’ve seen. But that wonderful, fleeting feeling of finding a home away from home somewhere in the world.
Even if it’s only mine for four nights.
Travel slowly. Stay somewhere that feels like home. And leave enough room to notice the moments you never planned.
