How planning travel can be a bona fide mood booster

All it takes is a glance at the news to be confronted with issues great and small to worry about each and every day. Roll in a few years of pandemic isolation and stress, and it’s easy to feel mentally exhausted and overwhelmed.

If you’ve experienced feelings of anxiety recently, you’re not alone. More than 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders in any given year, according to the Boston University Medical Center. While you can’t control major global issues, there are some ways to relieve stress, practice self-care and improve your mood, including, according to researchers, travel.

Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day, an initiative led by the World Health Organization with the objective of raising awareness of mental health issues around the world and mobilizing efforts in support of mental health.

As part of today’s focus on mental health, we at TPG decided to look at how travel affects mental health, and the ways that you can relieve some everyday stress by planning a trip, even if you’re not traveling anytime soon.

Nearly 8 in 10 (79%) people surveyed believe vacations are important to their overall health and well-being, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Also, avoiding burnout was the top-rated motivator to book a trip in the next six months — ranked even higher than travel discounts and deals, in findings the association shared earlier this year.

It’s not just the act of being on vacation that can relieve stress. Pre- and post-trip planning are equally good for our mental well-being.

“I have a firm belief that the experience of travel, looking forward to travel and post-travel recollections can all greatly enhance the mental health of the traveler,” said Dr. Lori Lawrenz, a licensed psychologist who works with Healthline (a Red Ventures subsidiary).

Here’s how travel can boost your mood.

The 3 stages of travel

Alexis Bowen, vice president of travel planning company Elsewhere (part of Red Ventures, TPG’s parent company) is enthusiastic about travel’s ability to create happiness.

From research Bowen has seen, there were surprising revelations about when travelers are happiest.

“If you break down happiness into three categories — pre-trip, on-trip and post-trip — most of us would assume that our greatest joy occurs on-trip, while we’re actually on vacation. In fact, this isn’t true.”

Instead, she explained, studies have shown that the greatest amount of happiness occurs outside the trip itself, with the majority of this happiness occurring before the trip even takes off. Pre-trip happiness is estimated at 50%, being on-trip at 15% and post-trip happiness at 35%.

“We feel joy just by anticipating and planning; it’s a layered experience — it’s the journey, but also the preparation beforehand and then finding ways to incorporate our new experiences into our lives after that all have a positive overall effect on our mental wellness,” agreed Rona Berg, a wellness expert and best selling author.

The science of mood-boosting travel planning

Fully engaging with an activity is one way to deal with stress, according to WHO. That’s one reason just planning a vacation can help with relaxation.

“Planning travel allows one to move from left brain activities to more right brain creative ones, a means of engaging in the world where anything is possible,” said Lawrenz.

“And planning kicks in a Pavlovian response — we know that vacation makes us happy, so we’re happy to start planning,” Berg said.

That happy anticipation you get when a vacation is coming near? That’s the result of dopamine, a hormone associated with motivation and rewards. In this case, the reward is travel, and as you approach your motivation (trip planning) more dopamine is released, making you feel happier.

That likely explains why three-quarters (74%) of travelers surveyed by the USTA reported being extremely or very happy anticipating and planning vacations in the next year.

The happiness of travel

Of course, planning a vacation comes with another reward: actually taking the trip you’ve been dreaming about.

The World Tourism & Travel Council calls travel a great stress reliever, citing a 2013 study where 80% of respondents said travel improves their general mood and outlook on life, and 75% of respondents also said travel helps them reduce stress.

“Travel is the door to open the soul to new experiences,” said Lawrenz.

“Immersing oneself in another culture, particularly if it is a different culture where different languages are spoken, enables us to engage differently than we do in our regular lives. Being different and acting different in this new and different environment will allow us to reinvent and retool the ‘me’ we want to be,” she added.

“In other words,” said Lawrenz, “travel gives us the opportunity to practice being the self that we envision ourselves to be.”

Briana Masson, a travel advisor with FORA travel, shared a recent travel experience she helped plan that brings this to life.

“I had a client — a friend of a friend — reach out to me who was scared to travel post-[pandemic]. She was feeling emotionally overwhelmed and said straight out to me ‘I need help,’” recounted Masson about a trip to Spain she helped plan this past summer.

There was a lot of trepidation at the start she remembers, but creating a highly detailed itinerary helped her client visualize the trip in advance, helping her get over her fear of flying after COVID-19.

When she arrived, said Masson, “She was happy from the moment she landed, sending me photos of the food she was eating and the places she was visiting — she told me she felt safe due to having a plan and from having an itinerary arranged — which was incredibly rewarding.”

Masson also said she built in activities to get the traveler outside her comfort zone, including riding horses, which gave her a fresh perspective both on the trip, and in her life.

“She felt brave going on the trip by herself and these new experiences built her self-confidence,” said Masson. The result was an “afterglow” of an improved mental state and overall feeling of well-being.

Post-vacation afterglow

This brings us to the last, and most impactful part of travel in many ways: how the activities and environments we experience when we travel stay with us after we return home. That could include the memories of spending time on the beach or the image of a beautiful painting in a gallery.

“When you come back — you feel a light inside afterward, the lingering positive energy or effect of the vacation,” said wellness expert Berg.

Berg also pointed out that many hotels and resorts now have spas that incorporate wellness experiences. They can provide you with tools and tips about everything from meditation to breathing techniques that you can bring home with you and help you extend the positive feeling.

You can re-create that picture in your mind of that babbling brook or infinity pool, and summoning the visual in your mind can bring back that feeling and form the kind of connective tissue that is transformative to our lives, Berg added.

Our commitment to mental health and The Jed Foundation

At TPG, we take the topic of mental health seriously and are thankful to have the ability to share the transformative power of travel with all of you.

In honor of World Mental Health Day, TPG is making a donation to The Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on the nation’s teen and young adult population, working with this population to protect their emotional health and prevent suicide.

You can read more about The Jed Foundation on its website, or donate here.

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