Many years ago, I planned a three-week road trip in the U.S. with an ex-boyfriend. He suggested playing it by ear, meaning we wouldn’t book all of our accommodation in advance.
Having only done package holidays, this idea was daunting. What if we couldn’t find a place to stay?
But as the trip unfolded, I realised this spontaneity allowed us to stay longer or leave early as we pleased.
As the wind whipped through my hair on California’s coastal roads, I felt free. Unlike my hair, which ended up in knots.
The importance of stepping outside our comfort zone
Leaving our comfort zone and letting go of routines is great for our health. It opens us up to the ebb and flow of the world, encouraging spontaneity.
My year-long round-the-world trip in 2013 changed my outlook. But you don’t need to embark on a lengthy backpacking escapade to experience the benefits of travelling.
Scientists are discovering that international travel benefits you in unexpected ways. From reducing stress to boosting creativity, the advantages are numerous - and some may surprise you.
1. Travelling reduces stress
Stressful situations can of course happen while you’re travelling, like lost luggage or flight cancellations. However, research shows that, overall, travelling actually lowers stress levels.
A 2013 study found that 89% of Americans noticed significant drops in stress just after a day or two of travelling.
And you don’t need to go far. Simply going to the nearest beach or to a city that inspires you can have a positive effect on your state of mind.
Getting away from your work and daily demands gives you time and space to reflect on your life and what you really want. Taking a trip for pleasure helps to take your mind off stressful situations, lower cortisol levels and make you feel more relaxed.
How travel helped to reduce my anxiety
For years, I struggled with depression and anxiety, but each trip abroad helped me rediscover joy. Embarking on a round-the-world trip was the best decision for my mental health.
A meditation course in Goa transformed me in two weeks from anxious and paranoid to calm and self-assured. As well as giving me emotional tools, travelling improved my physical health, keeping me active as I explored new places.
While travel might seem like a financial burden, it can actually teach you valuable lessons in budgeting and prioritising what matters to you. More on that next.
2. Travelling can help you save money
This is a counter-intuitive but important point:
Many people think long-term travel is expensive, but it can actually teach you to be smart with money.
My U.S. road trip was costly, with flights, car rentals, hotels, and meals quickly adding up. I even had to extend my credit card limit partway through - and that was just for three weeks.
At first, I worried that travelling for a year would be too expensive, especially without a regular job. But saving for long-term travel forces you to prioritise. I cut non-essential spending and sold unwanted items, knowing every penny was helping fund my dream.
To make sure I didn’t run out of money, I applied for a working holiday visa in New Zealand. This allowed me to earn money while travelling. Temp jobs and freelance work helped me supplement my savings and keep travelling.
Depending on your destination, long-term travel can be cheaper than daily life at home.
In some affordable countries in Southeast Asia, street food and transport cost very little. Hostel dorm beds and overnight buses can further reduce your expenses. You can find places to stay that cost less than $10 per night. And you will learn to negotiate a good price on the items you buy.
You may be surprised how little you spend in the end.
Flights can be pricey of course, but budget airlines, deals and reward points help. I saved money by booking a round-the-world flight package instead of separate tickets.
By carefully tracking my spending and working along the way, I managed to travel for a year without exhausting my savings.
Ultimately, the benefits of travel far outweigh the costs, especially what it teaches you about yourself. We’ll explore this next.
3. Travelling teaches you about yourself
Travelling is an investment in yourself. The more you travel and encounter new people and places, your experiences will subtly change you internally. Slowly, your perception of yourself, your relationship with others and your place in the world will transform.
Being exposed to new experiences and dealing with change on your journeys will shake up the patterns your mind normally follows.
My anxiety and self-doubt melted away as I realised I was strong enough to navigate the world on my own terms, free from external expectations. As a result, I became a lot kinder to myself.
If you're feeling lost, travel gives you the space to breathe and just be. It helps you discover a new purpose and what truly matters in life.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, an associate professor at the University of Southern California, says plenty of psychological research supports this:
“The ability to engage with people from different backgrounds than yourself, and the ability to get out of your own social comfort zone, is helping you to build a strong and acculturated sense of your own self.”
It’s clear you learn a lot about yourself through travel. It also simply makes you happier, even before you’re on the trip. Let’s find out why.
4. Travelling boosts happiness
A good tip for mental wellbeing is to always have a holiday booked. Even planning a trip months ahead boosts happiness.
According to a Cornell University study, buying an experience – even the anticipation of it – makes you happier than buying products.
Of course, vacations make you feel good. But the research proved that even knowing one is in the diary is more pleasurable and exciting than buying clothes or gadgets. Simply planning a trip makes you happier.
This shows the benefits of travelling abroad begin way before you’ve put on your out-of-office notification at work. And the satisfaction it brings lasts longer too.
While travel makes you happy, it also helps you to trust the people around you. We’ll delve into that now.
5. Travelling allows you to trust in people
From a young age, we’re often taught to be cautious of strangers. But travelling challenges this mindset, encouraging openness to new connections.
Research by Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinsky backs this up:
‘When people had experiences traveling to other countries it increased what’s called generalised trust, or their general faith in humanity. When we engage in other cultures, we start to have experience with different people and recognise that most people treat you in similar ways. That produces an increase in trust.’
While travelling solo, I found it easier than expected to make friends. Fellow travellers are often in the same situation and eager to connect. On the road, people tend to be more open than back home. Friendships may form quickly but can be surprisingly meaningful, even if they’re short-lived. You never know when paths might cross again (more on this in the serendipity section, later).
Travel also teaches you to trust the kindness of strangers.
Whether it’s someone offering directions or helping with an unexpected situation, travel shows that most people are good at heart. There is not much of a gap between a stranger and a friend.
Beyond trust in others, travel fosters resilience within yourself. More on this next.
6. Travelling makes you more resilient
Travelling solo is both exciting and intimidating. Navigating the challenges of new environments helps you build resilience you didn’t know you had.
Going out of your comfort zone toughens you up. You are forced to adapt to a place where you don’t know all the rules.
Sometimes you have to go with the flow and know that you can’t control everything. Especially in places such as India, where there can often be surprises around the corner.
But you learn you can cope with unexpected situations. They are the perfect foil to teach you to manage your anxieties and hang-ups.
Other times, you will be pleasantly surprised that things go a lot more smoothly than you imagined, despite being halfway around the world by yourself.
When you get home afterwards, these experiences can help you deal more calmly with tricky situations that may have previously triggered an emotional reaction. You find that you are more resourceful than you realised.
You may become less attached to belongings, as you have learned to travel with just a few items and clothes in your backpack. And you understand better when to be proactive and when to be patient.
Beyond building resilience, travel also sparks creativity in ways you might not expect. Let’s explore this now.
7. Travelling enhances your creativity
When I embarked on my round-the-world trip, I was keen to reconnect with my creativity. I’d left this side of me far behind since my schooldays, when I was always sketching or inventing stories.
For centuries, artists and writers have travelled to fuel their imaginations. Now, science is starting to explain why travel sparks creativity.
As our minds are sensitive to our environment and changes in habits, we are influenced by new sensations, which can revitalise our way of thinking.
A 2014 study proved that an international holiday for two or three weeks inspired employees to come up with a greater variety of more original ideas when they returned to work.
Professor Galinsky’s studies reveal that adapting to foreign cultures further enhances this. He says:
‘Someone who lives abroad and doesn’t engage with the local culture will likely get less of a creative boost than someone who travels abroad and really engages in the local environment.’
As well as creativity, travel seems to magnify the serendipity in our lives. We’ll look into this now.
8. Travelling seems to increase serendipity
Experiencing fortunate coincidences - or serendipity - is one of travel’s unexpected joys.
Long-term travel especially opens you up to chance encounters and spontaneous opportunities.
By moving outside of your routines, you become more attuned to the world’s little surprises. While you are on a long-term journey abroad, it’s like your senses are heightened and you are more open and aware than you would be normally.
When you are in this state – relaxed and authentic, without trying to control things – it feels like there’s a special kind of spell that’s cast to bring these good things and people your way.
That there’s a collective consciousness, strange as it may sound, that elegantly and thoughtfully knits these threads of life together in perfect harmony.
And just as seamlessly, you will influence and help other people on their journeys, whether you know it or not.
How I experienced serendipity on my travels
During my travels, things would sometimes seem to magically fall into place. There would be coincidences that seemed meaningful somehow.
Like unexpectedly seeing a friend from London in the middle of a silent disco in Goa.
Or, around the same time, a moment of good fortune, when I had a Goa guidebook but no transport. I discovered another guest at my homestay had a motorbike but no inspiration for where to go next. So we teamed up, using his bike and my book to co-create some great Goa adventures.
Times like these, and many more along my journey, led to adventures that became special highlights of my trip.
As well as appreciating moments of serendipity, travel helps to open our eyes to where we call home. Let’s find out how.
9. Travelling gives you a new perspective on home
When we return home from travelling, we realise a number of things. Firstly, how the countries we visit are often different from our preconceptions, and from how films and the media portray these places.
I was nervous about visiting Asia alone for the first time. But when I arrived in Thailand, I saw that in some ways it wasn’t so different from home. I saw huge billboards, written in English, advertising toothpaste and cars. While there were definitely some things to learn, it wasn’t the big culture shock I had feared.
Not only do you learn about foreign cultures when you go travelling, but your eyes open to your own culture.
Some of the customs and behaviours you take for granted are actually charmingly quirky and unique to your homeland. Your heart warms at the things that you miss, and you may acknowledge some aspects you don’t miss. You notice changes and how some things never change.
The world is way bigger than your small corner of it. But it’s also smaller than you thought, as you find yourself bumping into the same people in different countries.
Ultimately, there’s nothing like the feeling of returning to the sights, sounds and people you know and love, after a long time abroad.
In another way, home is more than just where you grew up. Your place of birth or where you went to school become just a part of your story, as you start to fall for faraway places. When you end up staying for weeks or months and make friends there. You realise that you could feasibly set up a life in this new place. Home becomes a more fluid concept.
And even once you’re home, you’ll have no regrets. Now it’s time for our final reason why travelling can change your life for the better.
10. Travelling encourages you to live without regrets
If you can take the leap and step away from your daily life to follow your dream of travelling, you are already doing what many people don’t feel they ever could. While it is scary, your life will be enriched in more ways than you could imagine.
While planning my round the world trip for a year, I was petrified about the ramifications of returning to ‘normal’ life. Would I have any money left? Would I find a good job again?
Soon afterwards, I met a family friend at my grandmother’s funeral. She was excited to hear about my plans. When she was younger, she had left her job as a teacher to travel the world with her boyfriend.
When I asked her if she had quickly found work again on her return, she smiled and said no, it had taken a while.
Did she regret her travels? Not for a second.
Final thoughts on the benefits of travelling
Whether it’s a once-in-a-lifetime journey or a weekend away, the benefits of travel are clear.
It revitalises your spirit, sharpens your mind and creates memories that will last a lifetime.
So, boost your happiness today by planning your next adventure.
You won’t regret it.
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What’s your favorite travel memory? Share your stories in the comments – I’d love to hear them.
What a great post! There are so many ways in which travel enriches you. Your mind transforms and your worldview expands so much.
I agree with so many of these! I’ve always found it much easier to connect to others’ while travelling. I hadn’t thought of it in the context of saving money but that’s so true!! (And so good when you reach your money goal and can travel)