Growing fast by slowing down: Byway’s approach

Cat, founder of Byway here. One of the questions I get asked often is how we’ve grown Byway so quickly. My answer often surprises. Our growth comes from how we work: intentionally, with space to think. As a hybrid company with team members based across Europe, we come together (overland) for a couple of in-office days each month, and work from our homes, and travels, the rest of the time. Remote-first working makes room for real life and our own adventures (including virtual meetings over on-train WiFi!). We make time for Byway birthday weekends together in the countryside, for hours out of the office volunteering as a team, and full-focus off-sites that help us recalibrate. These aren’t distractions; they deepen our thinking and sharpen our creativity, helping us connect with each other and the ‘why’ behind our work. Byway’s momentum doesn’t come from relentless speed, but from working consciously and sustainably, holding our huge mission (to make slow travel mainstream) in balance with our humanity. This is also the mindset of the slow travel movement.

In the earliest days of building Byway, I reached out to some slow travel pioneers here in Europe.  They included: Susanne and Nicky from Hidden Europe, authors of the Slow Travel Manifesto, whose poetic prose referencing even journeys in Greek mythology makes a compelling case for an alternative philosophy of travel; Kate and Jamie from Loco2 (acquired by RailEurope), who pioneered slower, more conscious travel through rail booking technology, and of course, Mark Smith, The Man in Seat 61, who’s always celebrated the joys of travelling by train and ferry and the depth of experience that comes alongside.

These earliest connections were a huge part of what propelled Byway into being. How might we build a technology to bring the slow travel ethos to more people? What if we could use technology to make slowing down easier? Byway has been built on the shoulders of slow travel giants to help more people experience the delights of travelling in a richer, more connected way.

From the beginning, our focus has been on holistic slow travel. Yes, it’s about taking traditionally slower forms of transport (trains, boats, buses) - though these days many trains are faster than flying once you factor in airport time. But slow travel isn’t really about speed. It’s about depth. It’s about what happens when you give a journey the time and attention it deserves. Soaking up the sunset from the top deck of a ferry, or watching mountain landscapes from the window seat of a local train that buzzes with chatter in the local dialect. Finding the stop-offs that surprise and delight, that you wouldn’t have discovered by another route. It’s a type of travel that celebrates serendipity, connection, and curiosity over efficiency.

It’s also about impact. Slow travel, done right, supports local communities and ecosystems. We prefer routes that use local infrastructure over tourist trains, and we book with and recommend local businesses (guesthouses, restaurants, etc) wherever we can. Our dynamic trip-building technology has a ‘hotspot penalty’ built in, which helps us spread travellers out, easing the pressures of over-tourism. And of course, with the acceleration of the climate emergency, helping more people travel overland (and sea) more often has become more urgent than ever.

But the route to mainstream change is through creating joyful alternatives, not relying on the ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ of sustainability speak. Slow travel offers a richer, deeper, better experience of travel - it’s something we want to do, not a compromise we make for the sake of sustainability. 

As we’re making slow travel mainstream, the broader ‘slow’ movement is becoming mainstream, too. Slow food has been around for decades, of course, and it inspired a lot of our early thinking at Byway. But now there’s a major wave of kindred movements (slow money, slow fashion, slow living, and more), with many brilliant founders building businesses that help people live, eat, buy and travel more thoughtfully. 

I love my coffees with Emilie from Oddbox (we’ve interviewed her on Journal about inspiring more conscious food habits), and my time with the fantastic Travel by B Corp crowd of industry pioneers focused on connection - brands like Sawdays, Pura Aventura, Much Better Adventures, and more. It’s been fun striking up partnerships with fellow travel companies, like the one that helps Intrepid tour bookers add slow travel to the start and/or end of their trips through Byway, instead of flying. More and more people are rediscovering that in an age of fast consumption and increasing disconnection, there’s joy to be found when we slow down and really connect. 

Slow travel isn’t new. It’s been around for decades. But what is new - and why Byway came into being - is making it simple and accessible for all, even those with limited knowledge and time. Because once you’ve felt the magic of travelling slowly, of watching the landscape unfold beside you from your train window, or of stepping off the train into a feeling you didn’t expect, it’s hard to go back. We strive to be the facilitator of moments of wonder that can only be found when you swap flying over for travelling through. And we take on the organisation, logistics and any hiccup-management, so that nothing gets in the way of Byway travellers being present on their journeys. 

That sense of wonder is why we exist. We’re excited to continue our slow travel journey, and we hope that, whether you book with us or not, our ideas and community can be part of yours, too. 

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