Don’t bother travelling. It won’t make you happy.
In 2014, I got my first real taste of travel — a trip to New York City.
My parents bought the plane tickets as a gift after my college graduation. I spent a week dancing every night, trying new and delicious foods, and meeting new people, places, and ideas.
I was so happy.
I was so happy that I decided to change my life plans. I had been planning to stay in the city where I finished university and look for a job. Even if it didn’t pay much, I thought, it was important to live near my friends. I wanted to start putting down roots.
After my trip to NYC, I completely changed my mind. Within two weeks, I had a job offer in the UK. I got a working holiday visa, got on a plane, and moved overseas.
It’s not terrible. I’ve lived in the UK for three years now, and it’s a solidly okay place to live. But living here and visiting exciting, romantic European cities doesn’t make me happy for one very simple reason:
Travel can’t make you happy.
We love to believe that travel makes us happy, but the science doesn’t back it up. A 2010 study with 974 Dutch holiday-goers (and a sizable control group) found that people are happier planning their holidays than actually going on them. A few weeks after their vacation, the people who travelled were no happier than the people who stayed home.
Travel advocates often emphasize research from Cornell professor Thomas Gilovach: experiences, not things, make us happy. And it’s probably true that your beach holiday will bring you more joy than a new TV. But the question still remains whether your beach holiday would make you happier than another experience. Will your exotic holiday really be better than spending a week building a backyard treehouse with a child or taking part in a week-long musical theatre camp in your hometown? There’s no evidence to suggest that travelling will increase your happiness in the long term.
On the other hand, it’s possible that too much focus on travel can distract you from the things that do make you happy: friends and family, meaningful work, and helping others.
I see over and over again people who put their careers on hold to travel the world. That’s great if it helps them to build close relationships, develop new skills, or help someone, but if it doesn’t, what’s the point?
There are always exceptions, of course. Maybe travel is essential to your life and happiness. Perhaps you, like me, have to fly halfway across the world to visit close family members. Perhaps you were accepted into a prestigious university in a new country. Perhaps you got an excellent job offer.
So should you cancel your upcoming holiday and stay home? No need to be so dramatic. You still might be able to enjoy your trip out of town. Here are some research-tested methods for improving your holiday happiness:
- Enjoy daydreaming about upcoming adventures. The same study that found no increase in vacationers’ happiness after their holidays did find an increase in happiness before the holiday. The researchers imagined the anticipation of planning for the holiday was the thing that made people happy, not the holiday itself.
- Turn your happy moments into stories. A recent study found that taking photos of fun, happy activities made those activities even more fun. And Gilovach suggests the reason experiences are so worthwhile is because we can tell other people about them. At their best, holiday snaps and stories are an opportunity for bonding over happy memories.
- Use your holiday time to focus on physical wellbeing. Exercise, sunlight, and sleep are all very important parts of a happy, fulfilling life. If you live in a country that has very little sunlight in the winter, a sunny holiday might genuinely boost your mood, especially if you also take the opportunity to catch up on some sleep and get some exercise.
- Consider going on your church weekend away or a yoga retreat instead of sightseeing. Time spent with your religious community and time spent in meditation or prayer are both significantly correlated with happiness.
- Most importantly, make your travel an opportunity to connect with others — especially a close friend or family member. Travel with them or tell them about the experience afterward. Send them pictures. Those connections are some of the most important factors in our happiness.
Do I still travel? Yes. Of course! Travelling is a fun pastime if you can afford it. There are a lot of interesting places in the UK that I haven’t explored yet and I’m focusing on those. Occasionally, I catch a cheap flight to a European city and look around. But travelling isn’t a major focus of my life.
Now, my goal is to develop a meaningful career that lets me help people and to spend as much time with my family, my husband’s family, and my friends as possible.
I focus on the kind of travel that can make you happy: travelling to see people you love.
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