Tourism’s contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is estimated to be around 5% and is forecast to grow rapidly, to around 16% of global emissions by 2020. Future strategies for mitigation must address the levels of demand for tourism transport. A major conundrum is how to achieve reductions in the GHG emissions from tourism transport whilst not stifling the growth of the tourism industry itself. This must include some modal shift away from those modes producing the highest GHG emissions. One response has been ‘slow travel’. This is an emerging concept in web communities the media and academic circles. The paper uses netnography to investigate what consumers regard as slow travel and identify their motivations for participating in slow travel. It concludes that there is no globally agreed definition of slow travel. The concept has developed independently in Europe and the US and significant differences in the understanding of slow tourism has become apparent, influenced by spatial, cultural, psychological and infrastructural differences.