AP PHOTOS: Looking for solitude in pandemic times
These Slow Cabins, set up the Belgian countryside, are the new way to vacation in pandemic times: in complete solitude and in the middle of nowhere
ANTWERP, Belgium — One year into the pandemic, just about everyone’s travel experience has changed.
So it’s not surprising that someone came up with this: Instead of a cabin on a Mediterranean cruise ship where vacationers mill around with thousands of others, the total opposite — complete solitude, on land, in the middle of nowhere.
And instead of all the luxury of pre-COVID-19 life with air-conditioning, four-course dinners and cocktails, these wooden cabins carry a warning: Don’t stay in the shower too long, it might get cold. And don’t bother looking for Wi-Fi.
The Slow Cabin, a concept of Antwerp entrepreneur Xavier Leclair, offers all this and even less: Little chance of catching coronavirus in the fully sustainable, tiny eco-homes.
“One of our main reasons to go to this cabin was to escape from work and other overloads. To disconnect from the internet and to reconnect with each other, nature and a simpler life,” said Kim Devos, from Erpe, Belgium, who recently booked a weekend with her partner, Guy De Deyn.
Each eco-cabin is outfitted with solar panels, rainwater collectors, a wood-burning stove, a small kitchen and bathroom with a dry toilet. An abundance of large windows offers the best reality show: nature itself.
The solar batteries store a limited amount of energy and the water reservoir is only so big, all of which can be monitored. The consciousness of how you are using these resources is meant to be taken back home with you.
And when the locations of the cabins become too well-known, they are easily pulled up and transported.
