Travel Psychology

Maybe it is the smell, or the temperature or maybe just the sight of it all. Whatever it is, the moment your foot touches the foreign soil your body knows it is no longer at home. It is grander than the conscious awareness of your foreign excursion, your whole body changes in an instinctual response to your surroundings. In fact, that is what your body does all of the time. We are constantly changing and adapting to our differing environments. But it is far more noticeable when the environment changes drastically. Recently I travelled overseas for my honeymoon. I spent 3 weeks out of the country travelling and exploring small corners of the world. My time there was wonderful and sometimes inexplicably magical. Coming home I have new insight on the way my brain works as well as the magic that occurred when my foot took that first step.


While I was away I was surprised at how inspired I was to create. Everyday I had another new idea for a poem or short story. Travel is an amazing source of new ideas and inspiration. A lot of factors come together to produce a rich environment for creation. Infatuation is everywhere; everything around you is new and exciting. Even if you have visited a place a few times the majesty of the world is a faucet that is always turned on. There is no shortage of new stimuli bombarding your brain every second, all of these stimuli are being processed by your brain and filed away for later use. The human brain is sometimes shockingly similar to a computer. When you create something your brain puts together a unique combination of data and presents it in a new way. But all the ‘data’ your brain compiles comes from somewhere. The stimuli you have encountered are the pool of data bytes that your brain can select from when creating something new. The larger this pool the more possible combinations of ideas there are. It is a pattern recognition game when you create. Your brain observes all of the individual pieces of information and expertly puts it together into a recognizable pattern. This occurs every time you do activities such as writing, drawing, playing an instrument and even speaking. When you travel you are rapidly expanding the data pool making creation even easier, you can find new and more complex patterns within that data pool allowing for more unique and interesting creations. So go somewhere new and sniff all there is to smell, see all there is to see, touch all there is to touch, taste what you are allowed to taste, and listen to all the living happening around you and I dare you not to be inspired.

 Another interesting phenomenon experienced while traveling is what I will call “Power-Save mode.” Just like your computer will conserve energy by entering into power save mode, your body and mind will do the same when traveling. Have you ever noticed that when you travel it seems like your body requires lower intakes of food, water and sleep? For example, when I was in Catalonia I walked an average of 9 miles a day in the hot Spanish sun when I normally walk less than 3 miles a day in Wisconsin. Most days I had more energy than I do at home even though I worked more and ate less. Your body and your brain are smart, they know that you are not at home any longer and the same comforts do not apply. You switch over to a different way of thinking and functioning. Your instincts are unsure whether there will be abundant food, water and other resources during your travels and your body adjusts accordingly. Although you may consciously know that you are not going to starve to death while visiting Paris the old nomadic patterns that we still carry in our brains today get turned on and your body prepares for whatever might come its way. You might be surprised the next time you go on vacation and notice yourself requiring less sleep and less intake, whether that means you are partying hard through the night in Miami or staying awake for days while backpacking through Europe your body’s amazing capacity will shock you. The power save mode can leave you surprised at how well you can function in situations you never imagined you would be in. You may discover yourself not getting bothered by the little things that normally irk you, or not caring if you had time to shower that week or even being completely fine sleeping on the floor or a broken cot in a hostel all for the love of adventure.

 The last amazing perk of travel I want to discuss is the ability for heightened observation. The older parts of your brain know that traveling can be dangerous. For hundreds if not thousands of years humanity was nomadic, moving from place to place. Who knows, maybe this is why we love traveling so much today. Travel is the modern luxury where settling down would have been the privilege of our ancestors. Those old nomadic safety mechanisms still exist for us today. When we travel our brains become more observant and active. You learn street names quicker; you observe your surroundings more fully and maybe you find that Spanish is not that difficult of a language to understand after all. Mental tasks that would normally be difficult seem easier. Your ability to remember little facts like what room number you are in, your flight number, the name of the clerk at the U.S. Embassy, is heightened and any information that may prove vital to you is retained. Have you ever looked for your keys for ten minutes before you found them sitting right where you had looked 20 times already? After our brains have seen something repeatedly, such as a table or counter, it stops noticing the subtle details. Instead it remembers the past images of that table or counter and superimposes those images over reality. Our brain takes many short cuts in the interest of best utilizing its energy most of the time to our benefit, other times to our frustration. But when everything is new all of those stimuli must be processed, more things get noticed because they have not become familiar yet. This is fabulous exercise for your brain in focus and attention. Travel does not just feel good but it is good for your brain too!

 When your foot steps back onto home soil there is a sigh of relief. Your body knows once again it is safe, you are home. But you are different now. You have seen what your body and your brain are capable of. You have conquered your fear and your emotions, you have trained your body to walk 9 miles a day and only eat what is necessary. You have come back with vital knowledge of yourself and your limitations; do not let yourself fall back into old habits. Remember all that you were able to accomplish, because you can accomplish all of those feats all of the time. You can be creative, efficient and observant everyday. That is the greatest gift traveling can give you, the knowledge of how wonderfully amazing you are and how much majesty lives right at home within you. Seek this sensation out whenever possible. Not everyone is able or equipped to travel, but travel symbolizes much more than physical distance. It represents the conscious effort of removing yourself from complacency. It does not matter where in the world you are, there is always something you can do to challenge yourself to take that first step out of your comfort zone.

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