What are the benefits of travelling?

Why people travel

Travel can be expensive, time-consuming and, often stressful.  Yet many people still do it willingly every year. In fact, since 2000, international tourist travel has more than doubled! So let’s look at the reasons why people travel.

Exploring new places

Some people love to travel to places they have never been to before - to see new landscapes, experience new sensations and learn about other very different cultures. These voyages of discovery can be really illuminating and make you re-examine your own life at home.Many people who travel to explore are writers, journalists and travel bloggers, who then share their discoveries with their readers and inspire them to travel.

Expanding the mind

We’re all global citizens, and yet have very different ways of living. To understand our fellow citizens of the earth and the places they live in, you really have to travel. That way you can understand different weather systems, geographies, socio-political systems, languages, history, cultures, food and drink. There’s so much to learn and absorb about this rich planet we inhabit.

Breaking away for relaxation

Every year many of us travel to go on holiday in order to relax and have a break from work, or other commitments. But how people relax can vary enormously. Some people will travel to lay on a sun-drenched beach for two weeks, others will be visiting every historic site in the guide book, and others still, will book themselves on a sporting holiday with every moment jam-packed with activity However you relax - there’s no doubt travelling for relaxation is good for your well-being.

Travelling for necessity

Many people travel the world for business meetings and conferences, others become migrants travelling in search of better job opportunities. According to the United Nations, the number of international migrants grew to 281 million in 2020. This means that 3.6% of the world’s people lived outside their country of birth that year.  Sadly, millions of others are forced to travel from their homes fleeing drought, famine and war. Again according to the United Nations, there were 89.3 million people forcibly displaced world-wide at the end of 2021.

Is travelling ‘good’?

The notion of ‘good’ is extremely subjective and everyone will have their own definition of it. People may be travelling to help others - such as for a charitable event, or for work in order to send money home. Travel may also be good for the traveller themselves, in terms of escaping their routine and having a break.

But, if we look more introspectively, travel is good for enhancing one’s own creativity, as it’s associated with being innovative. When we travel, we try the local food and drink that we may never have tried before, get exposed to new customs and culture, and get introduced to unfamiliar ideas and beliefs. This stimulates creativity within our thinking and the way we do things. It helps us think ‘outside the box’.

Travel is also ‘good’ as it also enhances our cognitive ability (general intelligence). This ability includes the capacity to “reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience” (Plomin, 1999). These attributes are all connected to travel.

But for the sake of balance, it must be said that the carbon emissions associated with travel, especially air travel, are not good for the planet. So, we must all do our best to minimise them.

What are the benefits of travelling?

We’ve already touched on some of the many benefits of travel -  here are a few more for your consideration:

Switch off and disconnect

We all need to escape our everyday lives and commitment every so often. And travel allows us to do this by enjoying complete anonymity in new and unexplored territories. It gives us the freedom to live in the moment, be spontaneous and seek new experiences.

Travel exercises those muscles

Travel definitely requires a little physical stamina. From running through airports and train stations to make your connections to jumping in the pool and doing those lengths. According to a study by the Global Commission on Aging and Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, in partnership with the U.S. Travel Association, travel decreases the risks of heart attacks and makes your brain healthier. The study showed that men who take an annual holiday are 30% less likely to die from heart disease, among other findings. So get booking that getaway!

Travel is culturally enriching

Everyone should travel just to open their minds and experience different ways of living. It certainly exposes us to different cultures and ancient traditions, so we learn to embrace and celebrate both our similarities and our differences. That way we can have more of an appreciation, understanding and respect for different points of view and ways of life.

Discover new purpose through travel

If you’re at a crossroads in your life, or even if you’re not, travel can often be a life-changing experience. It can be a breath of fresh air, a chance to slow things down and give you time to think it through. If you’re looking for a new purpose, the eye-opening things you experience through travel may give you new meaning, and a chance to work out what you are looking for.

The psychological benefits of travel

There can be enormous psychological benefits in travelling, as highlighted by Austrian researchers and published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. They found after a trial they conducted that travel can reduce stress levels and anxiety, even after just one short-term break of one to three days. Plus,  the beneficial effects last a while after you return home.

By travelling you often give yourself an opportunity to be more connected with nature. Fresh air and sunshine are so beneficial to your psyche and overall your health, as fresh air boosts oxygen in your body and sunshine provides you with vitamin D. Being connected to nature makes you feel calmer, which definitely helps with stress and anxiety.

Does travel really broaden the mind?

Yes. For all the reasons we have already mentioned, travel really does open our eyes, make us more broad-minded, and far less insular. But no one could have put it better than the great American writer, Mark Twain:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

WorldRemit makes living abroad easier

If you decide to travel and live elsewhere, we can be there to support you, and help you stay connected to those you love. If you need to send money back to family and friends, we offer an excellent, low-cost, online money transfer service: one that allows you to send fast and secure transfers.

And, if you need any more information on the different aspects of living abroad, you can also refer to our blog for a host of interesting articles.

So, why not sign up to WorldRemit, and make a money transfer today?

The contents of this blog post does not constitute legal or financial advice and is provided for general information purposes only. If you require specific legal and / or financial advice you should contact a specialist lawyer or financial advisor. Information true at time of publishing.