The connotation of travel has developed a completely new pattern in modern mores. Earlier, travelling was primarily regarded with holidays, pilgrimage or business. Today, it has become something much larger: it has become a sign of one’s way of life and even of their identity. Every few weeks another airport photograph, another passport stamp, or another mountain, beach or street pops up on social media. Having an interesting life has made it into a symbol. The more places a person visits, the more worldly they seem.
There is, however, an unsettling question underlying all of those photographs: does frequently leaving one’s home actually expand the mind, or does it merely offer a temporary escape from the life one has to lead at home?
The question is difficult because both sides are partly true. Travel provides exposure to unfamiliar cultures, languages, food, social systems and ways of living. It can also provide an impetus for a person to navigate uncertainty and reconsider assumptions. Research has even found links between recreational travel, cognitive flexibility and creativity. Concurrently, travel can become expensive consumption, social-media performance or a way of postponing problems. Moving the feet to new lands does very little if the thoughts remain anchored in the same harbour.
The difference became more apparent when researchers started to look at things other than the number of destinations visited. A longitudinal study of Dutch respondents showed that those who took holidays more often tended to report higher levels of life satisfaction and less negative affect. Interestingly, the link worked in both directions: people who were happier tended to travel more, and a higher frequency of holidays was also linked to later improvements in well-being. A similar longitudinal study of Korean travellers found that their subjective well-being started to increase even before the trip and stayed higher for about a month afterwards, indicating that the anticipation of and the memories of the trip are themselves part of the benefits of travel.
This shows that travel is not just a matter of the days actually spent away; the excitement prior to leaving and the memories that come after returning can also form part of a person’s psychological experience.
Then came the question that was more interesting: precisely what is being broadened?
When a traveller reaches Tokyo, Mumbai, Nairobi or Paris they come across situations which do not fit well within the routines they are used to. For example, a different public transport system might question the ideas one has about how cities should function. A meal might show that common ingredients can be mixed together in unfamiliar ways. A talk with a local family might indicate that a social custom which seems to be universal is in fact merely a local habit.
People’s mental categories for understanding the world can be altered as a result of such exposure. Research into multicultural experiences has shown that cultural exposure can be linked to creative thinking, although there is an important qualification in the evidence. The studies make a distinction between simply being exposed to another culture and actually interacting with it, and it is the case that multicultural interactions, not just simple exposure, have been connected with greater benefits for creative thinking, cognitive flexibility serving as an important mechanism.
The fact that there is such a distinction means that the phrase ‘travel broadens the mind’ has a different meaning.
A person who spends five days in an international hotel, sticks to an itinerary arranged for tourists, eats food that is familiar to them and talks almost entirely to other tourists has certainly travelled a certain distance in terms of geography. Yet the psychological distance covered might be quite small. On the other hand, another traveller who stays with a local family, learns a few words of the local language, uses public transport, gets lost, talks to shopkeepers and observes the way ordinary people live may return with a completely different understanding of the same place.
That is to say, the distance covered does not mean the same as the perspective acquired.
There is also evidence to show that the effects of travel on creativity can be surprisingly long-lasting. Studies have revealed that merely remembering past tourist experiences can boost creativity, at least in part because such memories trigger a temporary increase in openness to new experiences. Research carried out earlier on leisure travel had likewise indicated that encountering unfamiliar languages, food, environments and cultural practices could disrupt existing mental patterns and lead to greater cognitive flexibility.
One of the most interesting implications is that the advantage of travelling might last even after the suitcase has been unpacked.
Someone who has been to a different country might look at an old issue in a new way since the experience of another culture has given them a fresh mental frame of reference. A manager could reconsider an organizational practice having observed a different kind of workplace culture. A student might doubt the assumptions they had about education after having studied abroad. A designer might notice a new method of solving a problem they already know after watching another society make use of space, technology or public services.
Yet research also cautions us against romanticizing travel.
It doesn’t follow that every multicultural experience will lead to creativity. Studies have shown that the connection between multicultural experience and divergent thinking is more complex than earlier research indicated, since personality and openness to experience have an effect on the result. While cultural differences may cause curiosity, they can also cause discomfort, defensiveness or even a greater adherence to one’s existing beliefs.
What it actually means is that merely travelling does not make people open-minded, since it only provides opportunities for them to become so.
The traveller must still carry out the psychological work.
This is especially significant in an age when travel has itself become part of personal identity. Instead of focusing on the experiences themselves, frequent travellers often begin to accumulate a list of destinations. The passport then acts as a sort of scorecard and the photograph becomes more important than the place; a famous view is treated as something to be photographed rather than something to be understood.
It is ironic that technology enables someone to seem more closely connected to the world even though it at the same time decreases the need to actually interact with it; translation apps, navigation systems, online reviews and well-constructed tourist itineraries make foreign surroundings ever more comfortable and eliminate a great deal of the uncertainty which previously obliged travellers to deal with strangers.
A modern traveller can thus be physically a long way from home and yet still feel psychologically close to it.
There is another aspect to the question: what becomes of everyday reality?
Travel can act as a healthy break from everyday routine for certain individuals. Studies relating to holidays indicate that spending time away can enhance well-being and aid people in recovering from the pressures they experience daily. For an exhausted employee, a parent who is overwhelmed by their responsibilities, or a student stuck in a repetitive routine, moving out of the familiar setting can give them the mental room that ordinary weekends cannot.
But escape can turn into avoidance.
A person who is dissatisfied with their job may keep on booking holidays rather than dealing with the job. Someone who is having trouble in a relationship may continually look for new destinations rather than facing the relationship. A person who is uncomfortable with a normal routine may start to think that happiness can be found somewhere else.
This sets up a rather odd psychological situation in which the more often a person escapes from an unsatisfactory reality, the smaller the chances become of being able to improve that reality.
The issue isn’t travel per se; the issue is that travel can take the place of living.
There is as well a social aspect which the individual traveller tends to ignore. While the traveller sees a destination as an exciting temporary setting, it is home to the residents.
In 2024 global international tourism reached approximately 1.4 billion international arrivals. It also has great economic importance since the World Bank says that travel and tourism accounted for about 10 per cent of global GDP and provided around 357 million jobs in that year. For millions of people, therefore, someone else’s holiday is their means of livelihood.
A hotel worker, taxi driver, restaurant owner, guide or small business owner might regard tourism not as a way of escaping reality but as reality itself. It can provide opportunities especially for women, young people and small businesses, while at the same time creating jobs throughout the local supply chains.
The industry can also lower the quality of life for those who live in popular tourist areas. A study carried out in Majorca showed that 65 per cent of the residents interviewed felt their area to be overcrowded, and overtourism was linked to a lower evaluation of the region as a good place to live. More recent research into Kyoto has found that long-term residents experiencing overtourism suffer emotional distress, have a weaker sense of attachment to the place, and feel a sense of loss.
It sets up one of the greatest contradictions in travel.
The journey which expands the world of one individual can have the effect of making the world of another smaller.
This adds another dimension in terms of the environment. Transport associated with tourism is expected to account for 5.3 per cent of all man-made CO₂ emissions globally by 2030, compared with 5 per cent in 2016. As a result, frequent travel has repercussions that go beyond the traveller’s personal happiness.
The question eventually shifts from being one of whether people should travel frequently to one of how they should travel.
Someone who travels twice each year and actually learns about different communities might reasonably be said to gain more insight than another person who visits twenty places by means of the same luxury hotels and identical curated experiences. In a similar way, a person who goes back home and puts what they have learned into practice will probably do better than someone who right away starts planning their next getaway.
A person therefore who is the most valuable might not be the one who has the longest list of countries on their travel record; it could be the individual whose behaviour at home has changed as a result of their experiences abroad.
In the end, frequent travel has the effect of broadening the mind, but it is not travel that acts as the teacher; it is curiosity, interaction, and discomfort together with reflection that serve as the teacher.
The best evidence indicates that travelling leads to improved well-being, greater cognitive flexibility and more creativity; however, the advantages depend on what the traveller does with those experiences.
It might therefore be more appropriate to ask, “How many places has this person been to?”
It is:
Having seen the way other people live, has this individual come to see their own life in a different way?
If yes, then travel has achieved something valuable in that it has not diverted the person from reality but instead has given the person a broader reality to return to.
If the answer is no, yet another passport stamp might just be a different method of putting off that same life.
Then the true aim of travel might not be to keep moving away from home, but to return home with a mind that has in some way changed.
By: Ajitesh Jain
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