My husband and I don’t take many vacations, the kind that are days long instead of a 24-hour trip or a weekend away. But we ended up in Maine recently for a few days sandwiched in between refurbishment work on our downstairs and the start of gardening season.

In the lead-up to our time away, I perused the gazetteers I’ve collected for New England (yes, I am an ink-and-paper girl–no GPS here) looking for the best route to drive across New Hampshire to the Pine Tree state. Just for comparison, I did get online to see what its suggestions might be, and realized that my definition of “best route” and that of the Great Algorithm could not be more different.

The Great Algorithm’s choices (there were three) all involved long stretches on interstates. Around here, our mountains have a pronounced tendency to force our highways to run north and south because it was easier to build them that way. So when you are choosing to drive east from Vermont to Maine, you’ve really got to go the long-way-round in order to use interstates.

Boring. Tedious. Frenetic. Tension-inducing and unnecessary.

In my opinion.

Who in their right mind believes that the best way to start a vacation is driving among a herd of metal-encased humans all bent on getting somewhere faster than everyone else? Not me, that’s for sure.

So I sat back with a cup of tea and my maps and forged a path that almost eliminated interstates. Except for a short stint on Interstate 295, we stuck to secondary roads, many of them twisty and curvy with wonderful views over hills, lakes, streams, and eventually ocean.

We rarely exceeded 50 mph and most of the time, the speed limits were slower than that. We stopped once in a while to stretch, and made it to our destination in about the same amount of time as if we had tortured ourselves on the interstates.

And you know what was remarkable? We arrived with enough energy to unload the car, get ourselves unpacked, and then take a walk.

Now, in comparison, driving from our home to visit family on Cape Cod takes about the same amount of time as traveling to Maine, about four and a half hours. But you have to skirt around or go through Boston to access the Cape—on interstates. And the whole time you’re in the car, you’re on high alert with cars passing you, you passing cars, perhaps an accident here, some dangerous driving there. You can’t relax, even if you’re a passenger.

And when you do arrive, you face exhaustion and the energy letdown you get after imbibing too much adrenaline.

And what do you see along the way? Part of the idea of vacationing is to enjoy the journey, right? But the “scenery” along most interstates is interchangeable with the scenery along every other interstate—fast food joints, gas stations, cookie-cutter rest areas, and great big signs advertising things you don’t need.

As I said earlier, boring.

My husband doubted my choice of small state roads at first but we enjoyed the hell out of the slower pace, commenting on architecture and spectacular apple trees in bloom. I think I’ve made him a convert.

Slower is so much better.