I’ve been asked ‘Why do you travel?’ plenty of times without ever really considering how to properly respond. I would answer the question with a generic ‘I want to get away from the stresses of daily life’ or ‘I want to see the beauty of other places’. But studying a degree in psychology has led me to understand that there’s more to it than that, and I want to delve deeper into the real reasons behind our holidays. What is the psychology of travel?
I can still vividly picture the beauty of Barbados and the dreaminess of Dubai from family holidays I went on as a child. It feels like it was only yesterday. I can remember how excited I was at the prospect of going to another country and the anticipation that awaited arrival. This however can’t be said about times at home where I used to play with toys or go to the park. Why is that? Why can we so clearly remember our travels but seldom remember activities we carry out on a daily basis? In one of my second year modules we studied infant behaviour in depth and the way in which this age-group remember information. As children, we are increasingly excited by novel objects and experiences rather than those we have encountered before. The more often we are exposed to something the less interesting it becomes to us. This follows into why we are able to recollect memories from our travels more easily than those from everyday experiences. During our holidays we are exposed to new sights, sounds and smells and are given the opportunity to explore somewhere completely new. This idea excites us, resulting in the experience being stored in the hippocampus – the area of the brain associated with long-term memory, where it can be easily recollected in later life.
While this can be seen predominantly in children, it’s carried through in to adulthood where we continue to indulge in the prospect of the unknown. Even as I get older, the enthusiasm and thrill of going on holiday never seems to fade; I feel like a child again. For me it’s about the anticipation of another adventure, the opportunity to learn something I didn’t previously know, and sharing my excitement with others. As a big lover of food, holidays abroad are in part a culinary journey allowing me to sample the vast array of cuisine the particular region has to offer, from traditional Arabic flavours in Dubai, to tapas in Spain, not to mention the huge portions of comfort food that New York has on every street corner. This allows me to broaden my knowledge of the variety of food in existence, and means that I can learn new ways to incorporate aspects of these into my daily cooking, hinting at the educational benefits of travel. Could knowledge acquisition be part of the psychology of travel?
Despite the vast numbers of people travelling annually, this experience can alter dramatically depending on who you go with and where you go. Most of my travels have taken place with my family. So when I went away with a group of friends to Gran Canaria when I turned 18 this was a completely new adventure into the unknown. Without the privilege of being able to rely on my parents, it was a totally new, but nonetheless unforgettable experience, where I was given the opportunity to utilise my independence. During this time I learnt more about myself: what I was capable of and what skills I still needed to develop, while also becoming more open minded to different ways of life in other countries. As well as this, the trip was a brief preview into the challenges of Uni life, not just for a week but for three years.
While it seems that our love for travelling stems from childhood and the experiences we encounter at a young age, a look at the psychology of travel helps to explain the popularity of foreign holidays, and why these new adventures continually seem to excite us unlike those we are exposed to everyday.
Concluded in Part 2 where we uncover the true motivations behind our urge to escape.