Your inner suitcase: Why travel is excellent for your mental health

Our daily lives can often be filled with stressful situations and big responsibilities, and every now and then we begin to feel a strain that eventually begins to wear us down. These stressors tend to distract us from the things we find especially meaningful and important, leaving us with an imbalance in prioritising our own happiness.

Thankfully travel can offer us a counterbalance against our responsibilities. It gives us time to step away from certain situations, find ourselves in brand-new environments and shift our focus to something new and enthralling.

Travel can offer us a counterbalance against our responsibilities

When we travel, our own happiness takes over as a priority. We focus on our individual needs and how we actually want to spend our days. We can choose to take a long lazy lunch on a peaceful Tuscan farm, or rather spend the afternoon jamming with a Cuban musician in Havana. Nobody expects anything from us, and we can dedicate our time to doing the things that make us feel good, or even great. 

Experiential travel helps us to broaden our horizons, our perspectives and even re-evaluate the way we live our lives back home. You could be joining Buddhist monks at sunrise for a prolonged period of Zazen meditation at a hidden temple in the heart of ancient Kyoto or stopping for tea in a remote Berber village in the Atlas Mountains. Either way, the pace of life is bound to be much slower and simple than the one you currently lead at home. Perhaps you will discover new ways of thinking or useful ways to combat your anxieties when they arise.

Experiential travel helps us to broaden our horizons

In certain circumstances, you can also benefit from a real boost in confidence and self-esteem by throwing yourself in at the deep end. It could be as simple as travelling solo to an unknown city, experiencing culture shock, or overcoming language barriers. Or equally, be as extreme as diving with mantra rays in Indonesia or speeding across a volcanic glacier by snowmobile in Iceland. Facing these adrenaline-fuelled travel experiences and achieving success can often result in you coping better with difficult situations at home, as well as feeling more confident to step out of your comfort zone in other situations.

Travel also gives us the opportunity to build new connections and communicate with others. Whether that’s discussing the ongoing political tensions with a journalist over a coffee close to the Israel and Palestine border, or jumping on the back of a Vespa with a legendary local chef in Hanoi, helping him to select fresh produce from the market before heading back to his private kitchen to prepare today’s menu. We expand our horizons and feed our inquisitive minds with information and knowledge learned from others that we are passionate about. Travel really allows us to do that.

When you travel alone, you become instinctively more open to exchanges with new people

You may not have considered solo travel before, but this can also have added benefits to our mental health and social connections. When you travel alone, you become instinctively more open to exchanges with new people than if you were to travel with others. Your tendency to look outwards at those around you means you’re more able to feel that rush of oxytocin, which comes from meeting strangers and conversing with them in a mutually engaging setting.

If you are keen to discover new places and dissociate from the routine of life, even for a few days, then we are here to help you find the perfect destination and experiences to suit your passions and interests. We can arrange conversations, meet-ups, and interactions, or leave you to be as solitary as you wish in your own company and thoughts. Either way, a travel experience with us this year is sure to offer huge advantages for your mental health.

Contact our team of luxury travel designers to start writing your own story.

Please email us at: team@untoldstorytravel.com  or call us on:

+44(0) 207 523 5858