In our daily lives, many of us are constantly confronted with sounds all around them. Especially when you’re living in a city, it never stops, between honking cars, crying children and other city-themed sounds. Most of them aren’t actually that pleasant and even when you’re not actively listening, your mind can sometimes get a little overwhelmed. As a result, you’re getting irritated more quickly, as you’re in some constant state of awareness. Not great, especially when you’re life’s already busy enough and all you want at night is some well-deserved peace an quiet.
Due to that never-ending exposure to sound, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many amongst us are looking for ways to escape, at least for a few hours or days. They want to be able to turn off their mind, to be left alone with their thoughts and the nature surrounding them. And therefore, silence tourism is living some of its heydays.
Those heydays pretty much started when the worldwide lockdowns due to Covid-19 were coming to an end. After being left alone at home for months on end, while the world around us had slowed down to its slowest pace, all of a sudden we were pushed to go outside again. A transition that wasn’t welcomed by everyone and even those who were glad to regain their freedom did have some difficulty re-adapting, at least for a day or two. Because going from understimulation to overstimulation is quiet hard on everyone.
A way to escape
And that’s when people started looking for a way to escape, during the weekends or during their holidays. Instead of trooping together like sheep in the most popular destinations in the world, we started looking for quiet places. Places where we could be alone with nature. For some, the solution came in the shape of organized silence retreats, that focus on meditation, breathing techniques and long walks. For others, the solution presented itself in the form of a quiet little house in the mountains, surrounded by nothing else than meadows and woodlands. Because after all, it’s up to you to decide what kind of silence tourism suits you best. There’s no wrong or right, as long as it manages to wind you down.
However, if you’re still looking for a place to go, Quiet Parks might be able to help you out. The organization made a list of places all around the globe where you can actually sit and be alone with nature without being disturbed by human sounds of any kind. Just pick your favourite spot and go!
