The slow-travel concept can apply to any destination. Even New York City, despite its reputation for never sleeping, contains hidden oases designed to decelerate the pace of city life. To name but one, witness the serene lawn and garden just outside the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (housed in the magnificent 1901 mansion built by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie) and across the street from glorious Central Park. Which leads to this writer's summer-in-the-city tip: Cool your heels over iced tea in either green spot after viewing the museum's revivifying paintings by Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran in its seasonally themed exhibit, "Tourism and the American Landscape." An afternoon respite can seem like a weekend off.

For those seeking a more relaxed pace from the get-go, Vancouver, with its combination of natural beauty and cosmopolitan culture, is one North American city particularly well suited to the slow traveler. "It's ideal for people who want an urban lifestyle but also want to get close to nature," says longtime resident Jane Chambers. One of her favorite spots is the Museum of Anthropology: "It's basically on a cliff with a sheer drop to the water, in a building designed specifically to house those very tall, stunning totem poles."

Ah, beauty! But these days, wherever you go, the sights may be dazzling, the sense of quiet sublime--and then infernal beeping and blinking ruin the mood. Why can't they--why can't we--unplug and disconnect?

Unfortunately, "multitasking is endemic to our culture and infects our recreational experiences as well," says Jeffrey Kottler, a professor at California State University-Fullerton and author of Travel That Can Change Your Life. "It's not enough, we think, just to be with the family or sit on the beach or hike." Instead, even while we are (theoretically) away from work, we measure ourselves by how in demand we are. "We have a culture of bootstrapped ambition and often unacknowledged status anxiety that turns even leisure activities into arenas of achievement," says Tom Lutz, author of Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slacks, and Bums in America.

As painful a blow to the ego as it may be, summer is a good time to "challenge your grandiose notion that you are completely indispensable," says Silver Spring, Md.-based psychologist Ellen Ostrow. "Go someplace so isolated there is no cellphone or BlackBerry access."

That's one way of using the summer break to break away from old habits and try new ones. Kottler himself is trying to slow down his workaholic schedule with a self-imposed sabbatical. The result, one month in: "I feel wonderful!" Instead of walking with a purpose each morning from his home to the coffee shop and back to promptly start work, he now strolls, chats with neighbors, and checks his E-mail only once in the morning and again in the evening. Kottler hopes to maintain these new habits when summer ends.

Disconnectivity. Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell, author of CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! takes a similar approach. For the past 20 summers, he and his family have retreated for four weeks to a cottage in Connecticut they've named Lake Doolittle--since it's a place where "we do little, and we gain so much! It's a paradox. We're disconnected from technology--we have no TV, no cellphone service, no Internet, no video games--but we are more connected than ever with each other, with our friends, with the community, and with the natural beauty around us."