The truth about happiness and travel

By Christine Garvin On March 1, 2010 · 29 Comments

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The act of travel doesn’t make us as happy as the plan of travel. Here’s why.

Photo: Digiart2001 | jason.kuffer

Breaking out of the regular routine, sipping cocktails on a beach, hiking mountains in far-off lands – most of us tend to equate vacation getaways with happiness.

But according to a recent study in the Applied Research in Quality of Life, it’s the vacation planning that makes us happiest, and not the actual vacation itself.

The happiness boost not only occurs when clicking away on different travel sites or thumbing through Lonely Planets, and plotting your adventure. These researchers from the Netherlands (aren’t people generally happier there anyway?) found that the act of mapping out that time off increased happiness for up to eight weeks – two whole months – ahead of the trip. That’s certainly a lot longer than most vacations I know about.

Guess it makes sense in a way. In reality, vacation or travel tends to be more stressful than we anticipate, what with the little annoyances like lost luggage and improperly booked hotel rooms. Or the bigger ones like dropping your camera off a mountain cliff in Tasmania (check) and forking over $1000 for a last-minute flight to London from Zambia when you thought you were going to Niger for about $100 (check check).

Then as soon as the vacation is over, most of us have to get back to work, which immediately negates any possible happiness we did derive on that Carnival cruise…I mean, eco-friendly work-trip in Honduras.

Relaxing Or Barf-Worthy?

After reading this article in the New York Times, pointed out to us by Milos Trylon, I thought back to some of the trips I’ve taken in my life that were supposed to be “relaxing” – i.e. sitting on a beach, sipping daiquiris, checking out oiled-up men.

Ok, I’ve never really been on a trip like that, but I did participate in the requisite Spring Breaks in the Bahamas and Cancun in college, attended a wedding in Hawaii, even – sigh – jumped on one of those cruises.

That’s not relaxation, that’s food/alcohol-coma-nightmare.

I must admit, I’ve never had the kind of fun on these trips that it seemed I was supposed to have. For these types of vacations, which are ones I think the general public tends to fantasize about, it becomes a competition to drink and eat the most for your money. “Oh, alcohol’s included? Just go ahead and bring me four pina coladas now!” “All day buffet on deck 4? Sweet, it’s been over 45 minutes since we last ate, let’s go grab a nibble!” Ugh, that’s not relaxation, that’s food/alcohol-coma-nightmare.

Even if the vacation is less inclined toward booze and more inclined toward say, nature, hiking, and sightseeing, we often pack as much as possible into 7-days round trip. This leaves us so exhausted that first Monday back at work, we end up complaining about needing a vacation after our vacation.

The Power of Suggestion

Photo: Scott Ableman

Beyond whether or not vacations end up actually being as fun as we think they will be, it’s interesting to think about the mindset of travel and time-off.

We crave time away so much when feeling over-stressed at work, and researching different packages and options gives our bottomed-out adrenaline a little jolt.

Yet, since it turns out the actual vacation isn’t giving us the happiness we think it will, maybe giving our brains some time off could have the same affect?

Reality is what we see, think, and believe. Our thoughts are what bring us happiness, and the anticipation of something good gets those endorphins going. Can we use this knowledge in order to build in more daily escapes to look forward to, even if that’s just walking through a different neighborhood in our town, or taking ten minutes for the ultimate mind-trip meditation?

This is not to say that I think travel, taking time off, and even island-hopping college vacations aren’t valid. The point of travel is not only to achieve a high return on happiness – it’s also to learn about ourselves, other cultures, and even to be challenged to grow via those pesky annoyances.

This is not to say that I think travel, taking time off, and even island-hopping college vacations aren’t valid.

And I think there is a distinction between the mindset of those who travel for longer periods of time vs. those who are taking a short vacation, due to the fact that long-term travelers usually know they’re in for some rough patches. That’s almost a part of the purpose.

Still, when we can’t get away, whether that comes from a lack of funds, time, or dealing with life issues, it’s good to be reminded that mindset is the name of the game. We have the power to get away in the here and now.

Which just prompted me to head out the door to a personally-uncharted little town nearby to get the rest of my work done today.

Do you derive more happiness from vacation-planning or the trip itself? Share your thoughts below.

About The Author

Christine Garvin

Christine Garvin is a certified Nutrition Educator and holds a MA in Holistic Health Education. She is the founder/editor of Living Holistically...with a sense of humor and co-founder of Confronting Love. When she is not out traveling the world, she is busy writing, doing yoga, and performing hip-hop and bhangra. She also likes to pretend living in her hippie town of Fairfax, CA is like being on vacation.

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http://www.candicedoestheworld.com Candice

This is a pretty awesome argument, not sure how much of it applies to me though. I recently wrote a blog post about how wanderlust is a physical pain for me because I’m hemmed in by debt and lack of vacation time. Actually BEING on vacation, away from the cube and daily routine, is thrilling.
http://creatingrewardingrelationships.blogspot.com/ Kim Leatherdale

What an insightful post, Christine. Thank you.

I love to travel, but I can’t always afford to do so. However, I do allow myself to “travel in my head” often in order to enjoy the benefits. I read travel magazines, I click around sites on the web, and I talk about future plans and travel goals with my husband. We even have a list of places we’d like to visit and places we will someday live for a time. The anticipation keeps me motivated at my work when I’m losing steam.

Happiness is inside my head whether I’m home or out and about; that’s my choice.

Now, where to next….

-HappyCoupleXprt
http://www.novascotia.com Cynthia Bragg

Interesting post and quite true. There is always enjoyment in planning something that is supposed to be fun. I guess it comes from dreaming. Those who are travel buffs will certainly agree that planning and dreaming of a vacation and counting down the days is all a part of the fun. But I still believe that the actual experience of the vacation is better than the planning. That’s when the rejuvenation really happens. Travel glitches aside, that’s when we reconnect to the spirit. Especially when you choose your destination with that in mind. One that allows for some relaxation. Sometimes less planning can actually make the experience better. I love a little spontaneity when I travel, in amongst the bones of the must-see, must-do planned parts of the trip.

@CynatNovaScotia
http://www.joshwhitford.com Who’s Got Room

I agree that this is a pretty compelling argument for the pleasure of imaging all of the things you can do while on vacation. I think people need to remember how much time things actually take. Then they wouldn’t be as hurried when they only pick 1-2 things to do per day. Let the adventure of finding/doing those 1-2 things make up the vacation experience. The idea it to relax and have an experience not overwhelm you senses
http://rvingtoadless.blogspot.com/ JJ

I travel in an RV. Generally, I DON’T plan, except that I will be gone in the RV, a specific number of days. Other than that, I DON’T plan. That is what is most relaxing.
Adam MacKenzie

Hah, this is so true. I was planning a trip across Canada for about a year. And everytime I felt angry or depressed I would just think about my amazing canada road trip.

When I finnaly did it though, It defiently wasn’t what I thought it was going to be in my head. Still was great though. But the thought of doing all the wacky things leading up to my trip was more fun than the actual trip.

http://www.novascotia.com Cynthia Bragg

Oh Adam that is sad. Come back across Canada, we promise to make your next trip more wacky. Although you can’t really always plan for wacky, sometimes it’s just in the company you keep. Wacky is almost always spontaneous. Which goes back to the un-planning. It’s always great to get to know locals and get tips from them too. Friendly and colourful characters lend just as much or more to the experience than landscape and attractions.

http://carlo-alcos.com Carlo

I think Adam just said it here: “But the thought of doing all the wacky things leading up to my trip was more fun than the actual trip.”

It’s about expectations…and too many times, people have unrealistic expectations about their trip. Read any guide book…they make every city/attraction/event sound like it’s the cat’s pyjamas. I call bullshit.

Rather than having such high expectations, just take things as they are and allow yourself to just be there and experience it without projected notions about “how it’s supposed to be.”
http://nycitymama.com NYCityMama

Confession? I pick a spot based on some minimal but most important knowledge (kid friendly, cost, overall review), but won’t research too much (research even less of not traveling with kids). I also never pack until the night before, and I don’t stress about the itinerary (what? who? where?) I try, in as many ways as I can, to just “go” and figure it out while I’m there. At times I may find myself a bit unprepared, but more often than not I’m surprised and excited about what lies ahead. Takes a lot of the stress away from me. It also helps I can just go with the flow I guess.
http://laobumpkin.blogspot.com/ Somchai

I’m more the unplanned type, like the post above. NIght before I’m trying to stuff things in a small cary on. Money, passport, camera, and what else was it?

Other than the next nights destination I usually have no idea, and even that isn’t set in stone.
http://wheretherebedragons.com Tim Patterson

Good points.
http://www.timelesstents.com Scott Claflin

I’ve got to agree with JJ and NYCityMama. The best, most relaxing (and exciting trips) I’ve taken have been ones in which I knew how long I was going to be gone and had an idea of where I would like to go.

For example, I live in Florida, where it’s pretty flat, and like to the mountains. I like camping in tents, so I just pack camping gear, a guitar and enough food and clothes to take off for a week. Then I can stop wherever I felt like stopping along the way. Some nights I may stay in hotels, others in the tent. If I pull into an area and in talking with people find there is something interesting worth seeing, a side trip is never out of the question.

When you do this, if you pull into a place that you really like, you can just stay a day or a few days longer. It’s a completely stress free way to go. Too much planning and you are just trying to “work” your plan…the key word being “work”. For some people this may not “work”, because they like to have every little thing planned out.

We went to the Bahamas recently, and my girlfriend wanted to plan out what we were going to do ahead of time. It wasn’t that relaxing, because it was all about what we were going to do every minute of each day, and maintaining a schedule. When I’m on vacation, I’d rather not worry about a schedule, but then everybody is different.
http://www.tripbase.com/blog Katie, Tripbase

I am with you on this one, I LOVE planning trips. So much fun and yes, perhaps even more fun than the trip itself!
j.c

Now that I also fall in the no-plan category (largely), I still find myself getting excited about a trip because I know from past experience the kind of feelings I can expect to have – anticipation, nervousness, discovery. I find myself thinking about past trips and reading more travel writing, even if it’s not about my destination.

It’s sort of like how when you’ve eaten a certain kind of food in the past, you crave the kind of flavours even though you know the dish itself may vary.
Justruss

You’re saying travel is like Christmas is to kids. The anticipation is so great, the actual event disappoints. In fact, the anticipation is so great in the mind, the event cannot meet expectations. I agree and also believe this concept applies to many circumstances in life.

Once again, you’ve written a very nice article.
http://www.spreadinghappiness.org Nick1254367

You do write a very good article here, linking happiness with vacation. Personally, I think that “happiness” is a tricky word. I had a shot at trying to define it in a more “scientific” or “objective” way, despite it being a subjective feeling:
What is happiness?

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you,
Nick
retireandgo

Being a little older than many of you, and finally retired, travel has changed for us. Last year we spent 4 1/2 months in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Italy and France. But we changed the way we normally traveled (rushing around) and decided to park ourselves for a week here and there and, if it was a city, really get to know it, or if it was in the country (as was the case of two weeks of house-sitting in Provence), we had leisurely breakfasts and spent the days visiting small villages, enjoying great lunches, and shopping for our dinners. For us, slowing down and not trying to do it all is a much better form of travel.

We’re off next month to southern Italy (a re-visit) and Sicily, and then to Crete and the Peloponnese (again!), then a week in Paris and a visit to our daughter in London. We’ll be gone 2 1/2 months and I expect it to be as smooth, and challenging and frustrating and exciting (“What? I can’t buy dinner until 8 pm?”) as usual. And I love it!
http://www.twitter.com/exoticfamtravel alva

I couldn’t agree more after reading just the first few sentences – it’s the planning process that I enjoy the most. I remember about 10 yrs ago we went to Greece, Paris, and London, and I started planning months ahead. Back then, travel research on internet wasn’t that popular, I had to exchange faxes/emails with the hotels on Greek Islands, read a lot of tour books, talk to lots of my european friends. But it was all fun, I got to learn much more about traveling there but how the locals see their hometown. Thanks for your article. I enjoyed it a lot!
Paul Spain

I found this interesting, it reminded me of when I took a trip 10 years ago camping visiting national parks Yosemite Bryce Zion etc with 12 complete strangers all ages. Booked 12 months in advance first time on my own flying across the atlantic. Did some research. The weeks at work dragged by but the closer it got the more excited I became with a sense of anticipation also nerves. It all turned out to be fantastic. The only problem was it took me about 6 weeks to get back to the reality of working after returning home.
Diane

Interesting argument. I have a feeling though that you will have a very different response from annual vacationers and actual travelers. My husband and I are travelers – 275 days more or less away from “home” last year alone. I hate planning our trips and love living them. We plan our work travel by necessity and just wing our pleasure travel which makes up about 20% of our on the road time. Our best times are when we pick a place on the map at random – go there and just let things unfold.
funtraveller

I like it. It reminds me of the Rocky Horror Show, it’s all about anicip-p-pation. Imagining is one of the beautiful things of life and can be done lying in the sunshine on your back lawn looking up a the sky. Or waiting for a bus. Travelling is great too, and of course it’s hard to settle back to routine immediately after travel. You have to deal with the melancholy of ‘after the mission’ as the space travellers did, and find a new project. But isn’t special thinking back to that trip to Vietnam in 2005 and the amazing cooking courses or the Yoga in Bali 2008. The memories always give you something to salivate to. The beauty of the mind is the ability to project itself forward into the future or back to an amazing experience. So, it’s all good really, some is just live and the rest happens in your head!!
Carolyn Hopper

I think planning is half the fun about a trip. Imagining being in a new place – a new kind of place from where I live-smelling the flowers, tasting the food, feeling the breeze on my face. Anticipation has a lot to do with how a trip might go.
Lea

I’m all for deep inspiring quotes, and this one is from a well-known bear and kinda sums the points in this article up for me …

Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best — ” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.
– Winnie the Pooh

Always makes me smile
TimR

Planning can be enjoyable, but too much thinking ahead of time sets you up for disappointment. Nothing’s ever as good as all that idyllic dreaming, especially when crammed into seven days. Travel’s travel, dreaming’s dreaming, and the two shouldn’t be confused. I still do plenty of reading and dreaming, but when I get to a new place, I accept it on its terms, not the terms of my dreams. Inevitably I cherish the experiences, but for reasons I could never have imagined anyway. And after all, isn’t that the reason for travel?
http://globalgranny.blogspot.com/ Global Granny

Indeed. As I once waxed earnestly to folks in my Belize and Costa Rica travel seminars (way back when nobody had even HEARD of Belize): “Only but 33% of the joy of traveling is the trip itself. For fully 1/3 of the fun is in anticipation, the planning, the dreaming. And the final third? Why the memories you’ll have forever and ever!”

Trust that planning an adventure to some new corner of the globe can while away many a dreary winter’s day. Researching the digital fodder on your destination, reading up on the history, the culture, the flora, the fauna – all can greatly enhance your precious time when you finally hit the ground in [insert your dream destination du jour here].

Ah, but the trick is to relish the planning, the dreaming and the delicious anticipation, yet…

Toss all that to the four winds when the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac, and open yourself up to the serendipity that only comes with unbiased, free-spirited exploration.
Amellia

I generally don’t like the planning process. The visas, tickets, accomodation.. If I had a Holiday Maid I’d get her to plan everything; or a programmed robot would do nicely too. I get more fun out of the trip itself because theres always things you can do at the spur of the moment. Its those little moments where you decide hell yes I’m doing this, I dont care if my credit card maxes out(or something similarly life changing) that I think of when I’m back home and wonder how different my trip would’ve been if I had made a different decision.
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/aimless Melissa

When traveling, I typically allow myself a minimum two-week-settle-in period in which there is NO planning, NO pressure, NO schedules, NO organization. I simply take that time to get accustomed to different surroundings, culture, language, and people. This works best for me because I tend to keep quiet and curious about the new place instead of having pre-conceived notions via guidebooks and internet message boards.

Most people can barely afford their two-week vacations, and without that time to get settled in, how could they ever relax into their surroundings? I’ve had the experience of taking one of these infamous 6-weeks-DO-Europe rush jobs, and had much more fun scrap-booking the hundreds of photos that came from it than I did there in Rome or Paris.

If your brain is on planning overload, it’s difficult to be present and mindful. Many travelers spend their few days exploring a new place in the internet room, looking up info for the NEXT city on their agenda. Where’s the pleasure in that?

I believe happiness is in the moment, each moment, as we breathe and think.
Happy Traveling Girl

I find the art of preparing for a trip can be a very fulfilling task especially if one is not looking at the most obvious landmarks. I have been a frequent flier pack of pretzels for quite a while mostly for work but I always try to prepare a little adventure fro myself for each destination. How often do we get the opportunity to see, live free, and as quoted above live in the moment? I know there are many a folk out there who do not have the means for such ventures whether it’s work or play. I picked up a tool recently that I have been using to schedule all my trips and it has been really making a difference on the amount of time I can spend on developing a good journey strategy. I work for Dish Network and was introduced to the Logitech Revue which gives me access to a multi-tasking tool of magic. It’s great to be sitting comfortably in my personalized recliner with a wireless keyboard of magic in my lap and my cat curled up next to me. He used to hate it when I would choose the laptop over him and he would let me know he was jealous with his loud Siamese yell that left me feeling neglectful. So as I rest easily I’m also searching the vast ocean of the net using Google TV looking for every tool available for my trip on my big screen while watching a program on Nat Geo about the forming of the Universe, I really can not find a reason to complain.
http://twitter.com/MelLifshitz Mel Lifshitz

That’s a very interesting study and it’s seems true. I often travel with my family and my kids excitement can’t be compared to anything when we are planning for our next travel destination.

The truth about happiness and travel

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