Every claim on this site can be looked up.
Restoration, not transformation: travel restores us the way sleep does, the benefit fades, and that is normal. Each finding below is listed with its source.
People who have a holiday ahead of them are happier before the trip than people who are not going, and the lift comes from looking forward.
Nawijn et al., 2010 · Nawijn, J., Marchand, M. A., Veenhoven, R., & Vingerhoets, A. J. (2010). Applied Research in Quality of Life, 5, 35–47.
Waiting for an experience feels different from waiting for a thing: looking forward to a trip brings excitement, while waiting for a purchase brings impatience.
Kumar et al., 2014 · Kumar, A., Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilovich, T. (2014). Waiting for Merlot: Anticipatory consumption of experiential and material purchases. Psychological Science.
People enjoy looking forward to something good so much that they will sometimes choose to delay it, just to savour the wait a little longer.
Loewenstein, 1987 · Loewenstein, G. (1987). Anticipation and the valuation of delayed consumption. Economic Journal, 97(387), 666–684.
Across five experiments, people felt emotions more intensely while looking forward to an event than while looking back on it, because we picture the future more vividly.
Van Boven & Ashworth, 2007 · Van Boven, L., & Ashworth, L. (2007). Looking forward, looking back: Anticipation is more evocative than retrospection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(2), 289-300. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.136.2.289
Rest is not the absence of activity. After tiring mental work, quietly relaxing with music and magazines restored people less than a walk did.
Hartig et al., 1991 · Hartig, T., Mang, M., & Evans, G. W. (1991). Restorative effects of natural environment experiences. Environment and Behavior, 23(1), 3–26.
Of the four qualities that make a place restoring, being away from daily routines and demands is the one travel delivers most reliably.
Kaplan, 1995 · Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169–182.
Restoration needs you to be mentally away, not necessarily far away. Research on restorative destinations treats the two as separate.
Lehto, 2013 · Lehto, X. Y. (2013). Assessing the perceived restorative qualities of vacation destinations. Journal of Travel Research. DOI 10.1177/0047287512461567
In a study of nearly twenty thousand people, those who spent at least two hours a week in nature were more likely to report good health and high wellbeing.
White et al., 2019 · White, M. P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J., Wheeler, B. W., Hartig, T., Warber, S. L., Bone, A., Depledge, M. H., & Fleming, L. E. (2019). Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing. Scientific Reports, 9, 7730. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44097-3
Noticing new things in a familiar place is itself a core part of mindfulness. Walking your own town as a stranger is a practice, not a poor substitute for travel.
Langer, 1989 · Langer, E. (1989). Mindfulness; Langer, E. (2000). Current Directions in Psychological Science.
People's minds wander from what they are doing almost as often as they stay present, and a wandering mind is typically a less happy one.
Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010 · Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330(6006), 932. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1192439
Commuters asked to talk to a stranger enjoyed their journey more than those who sat in silence, even though most had predicted the opposite.
Epley & Schroeder, 2014 · Epley, N., & Schroeder, J. (2014). Mistakenly seeking solitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(5), 1980–1999. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037323
Feeling awe, even standing among towering trees, made people more generous and helpful, partly by giving them a sense of a smaller self.
Piff et al., 2015 · Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015). Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 883–899. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000018
For happy memories, simply replaying them in your mind does more good than writing about them or analysing them.
Lyubomirsky et al., 2006 · Lyubomirsky, S., Sousa, L., & Dickerhoof, R. (2006). The costs and benefits of writing, talking, and thinking about life's triumphs and defeats. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(4), 692–708.
Most people return in their minds to experiences, like trips, more often than to the things they bought.
Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003 · Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. JPSP, 85(6), 1193–1202. DOI 10.1037/0022-3514.85.6.1193
A holiday flies by while it happens but feels long in memory; routine drags in the moment and vanishes afterwards.
Hammond, 2012 · Hammond, C. (2012). Time Warped. Canongate.
A trip removes almost all the everyday cues that drive our habits, so coming home is a natural fresh start for a new practice.
Dai et al., 2014 · Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). Management Science, 60(10), 2563–2582.
People randomly asked to list things they were grateful for showed higher wellbeing on several measures, most clearly more positive mood, than those listing hassles or neutral events.
Emmons & McCullough, 2003 · Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377–389. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377
Each card of The Travel of Life carries up to three findings for its topic, each with its reference.