I have always been good at doing nothing. My idea of perfect happiness is a book and a hammock with the sunlight dappling through from a palm-thatch roof. Or a window seat on a long train or bus journey where I can stare aimlessly at passing scenery for hours. I have a gift for accomplishing very little with no accompanying guilt and some of my happiest travel memories are of times when life slows down to a crawl.

Six weeks at a remote beach camp in Egypt’s Sinai with no distractions except the rhythmic slosh of the waves onto the shore. A week in the dinky Madhya Pradesh village of Orchha spent staring over to the ruined remains of ornate palaces while sipping chai on the wall of the hotel courtyard or sitting on the riverbank reading and watching the dhobi wallahs scrub the mountains of laundry clean. I came to the realisation long ago in my travelling life that I am not a person who tears down walls for something to do. I have been known to while away half a day happily lying on a lumpy mattress of a cheap hotel room staring at the patterns of the mildew formations on the ceiling.

So it was with some trepidation that I first became a tour leader. My style of travel had always been slow. Involving six month stints or longer upon the road. There was nothing I adored more than having the luxury of time to spend a month in a town if I liked it. The idea of going on a tour had never attracted me for a variety of reasons. Mostly because the entire idea of someone else telling me what to do is my ultimate nightmare, but also because they just seemed...well...quick.

Blink and you miss them. A tour can take the hassle out of your travels. Useful if you have one of those things called a career-path and don’t want to spend a longer time on the road. But how much can you absorb in a three week jaunt through the Middle East? For just over four years I travelled at lightning bolt speed; the tortoise masquerading as the hare. Employed by one of the world’s largest adventure travel companies, for nine months of every year, it was my job to buzz tourists through an itinerary that covered Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey in the constricted space of 21 days. We hardly had time to catch our breath let alone sit down and smell the flowers. You can’t do the Middle East in three weeks, I’d warn my passengers at the initial group meeting. But I could get them to the major highlights.

Every ruin or tumbling panoramic view was serenaded with the buzz and click of camera shutters. There wasn’t time to spend all afternoon sitting on a fallen Roman column and just survey the scene. There was only time for photos. By the end of the second week fatigue would be etched over faces as all the get-on-and-off-the-bus and packing and repacking began to have an effect. On day 21 we’d stagger exhausted into Istanbul, backpacks on our weary backs.

It was a life of perpetual fast motion. Finish a trip. Say goodbye to my passengers. Fly back to Cairo. A couple of days off if I was lucky. Start another trip. I never unpacked properly because I rarely stayed anywhere longer than two nights. It was travelling on steroids. In the end it began to suck the joy of travelling out of me. My life had become a tour leader hamster wheel.

The afternoon after I wrote my resignation email I went to visit Ibn Tulun Mosque in Islamic Cairo. I’d shamefully never got around to going there before. I wandered around its vast airy corridors that framed the dazzling white paving of the courtyard. I stood transfixed while gazing up at the intricate calligraphy which adorned its arches. I sat. For hours. Just taking in the atmosphere of blissful contemplation before climbing the spiral of stairs to the top of the minaret where the helter-skelter of Cairo rooftops, spreading out to the far distance, greeted me at the top.

Being able to travel so slowly is something of an indulgence and a frowned upon treat. Maybe that’s why I love it so much. In a world so obsessed with possessing stuff – ipod, plasma-screen TV, mortgage, kids – it’s a little bit naughty to be so lavish with time wasting. I know for me though, now that I've seen the other side of tourism up close, that this is a luxury worth savouring.