Why Travel Boosts Our Mood and Keeps Us Coming Back for More

From viral social media reels to awards crowning the best remote getaways and luxury retreats, travel is far from a fading trend. As someone who travels quite often as a journalist, the idea of getting away has changed for me over the years. It has become more than just a way to share the best tips with readers or to find the best location and music in hopes to go viral. It has become a calling to practice humility and gratitude for this ultimate mood elevator.

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit some of the most beautiful places in the world: a mist-covered corridor that revealed the towering Taj Mahal, neon-pink sand flanked by palm trees and the world’s most precious coral reefs in the Caribbean, a herd of zebras grazing at sundown at Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. Even now, as I type my recollection of these moments, I feel an instant endorphin boost—similar to the rush I first felt gazing at these wonders. That rush isn’t just a coincidence, though. It’s biological.

“Within our brain and nervous system, a cascade of neurons, neurotransmitters and hormones orchestrate the pleasurable and calming effects of seeing, sensing and interacting with nature and beautiful spaces. The limbic system, responsible for emotional expression and release, becomes activated when viewing beautiful landscapes,” says Marie Therese Rogers, Ph.D., a Florida-based psychologist and author.

The mental health benefits of traveling

Think about the last time you traveled. Chances are, you forgot about a looming work deadline or bill, that annoying thing your boss did, or a to-do list that taunts you daily. That’s because travel, as the ultimate mood elevator, has the power to command our attention and deference.

“Traveling opens our eyes to our world and delivers a rich and diverse stimulation of new experiences, providing both cognitive and sensory nourishment… Traveling boosts both mental and physical health. It resets and recalibrates our lives, which serves to enhance productivity and creativity, while reducing the debilitating feelings of stress and burnout,” writes Rogers in her piece, “The Neuroscience of Traveling and How it Benefits Your Brain and Health”.

Recently, IHG Hotels & Resorts worked with The Future Laboratory to conduct new research that found an increasing demand for travel to big sky locations. The study found that “nearly half (42%) of respondents [are] prioritizing aurora chasing in the year ahead over other bucket list experiences.” “We also saw that extreme expeditions and experiences received an uptick in interest, as travelers look to transcend their day-to-day realities. There’s more curiosity about checking off exhilarating items on their ever-growing bucket lists, with activities such as running with the bulls in Spain, bungee jumping in Switzerland, and exploring underground caves in Mexico,” says Connor Smith, VP of masterbrand strategy and awareness at IHG Hotels & Resorts

And it isn’t just chasing the Milky Way or underwater worlds that keeps us thrilled. Stimulation is happening all the time when we travel, in ways we might not even be aware of. Every detail of a place sets the backdrop to sensory reactions that keep us inspired. “The predominant colors of nature (mainly blue and green) are psychologically calming to our nervous system,” says Rogers, “We are drawn to gazing at the ocean, mountains, trees, clouds and sky. Long gazes at nature activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn promotes feelings of calmness and rejuvenation.”

Getting into a travel mood

I experienced these mood-inducing colors firsthand in a recent visit to Arizona. Driving through the desert town of Sedona, I was immediately drawn to the craggy, amber-colored rock formations glowing above me. Inside my atrium room at Ambiente Sedona, suspended above it all, floor-to-ceiling windows provided full immersion into the surrounding bubbling creeks, red rocks and hiking paths. Coined a “landscape hotel,” the retreat is part of a growing trend of properties focused on practicing sustainability and blending seamlessly into the natural environment. That’s easy to do in Sedona—a region with mystical vortexes that, for years, have captivated travelers who believe these special pockets of movement amplify the Earth’s energy and serve as channels for spiritual connection.

Peter A. Sanders Jr., a vortex expert, spiritual teacher and president at Free Soul Mind/Body Education says, “Sedona is green, even in drought, and the color green is a limbic soother that we associate with hope and spring. [The] red-orange rocks also trigger hope because they are the color of sunrise.” Sanders, who studied biomedical chemistry and brain science at MIT, has been featured in a number of publications on stress reduction in travel and the powerful magnetism of nature. He adds, “The brain scientists say that anything that pulls you ‘up’ gets you out of limbic state of worry. Nature is always an upflow vortex effect because plants are reaching for the sunlight. Hiking is a limbic soother, walking requires using higher cortex areas for muscle coordination.” 

Travel is the ultimate mood elevator

I experienced this upward-inducing euphoria during my first trek through the Grand Canyon—not hard to do when you’re among geological formations dating back some 70 million years. Far different from the famous canyon but still awe-inspiring nonetheless is another one of my favorite places for elevated magic—the rooftop of 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge with views of the Manhattan skyline at night and cars that twinkle as they make their way through boroughs. The location of the waterfront hotel and the continuity of sky and bridge has given me some of my most stimulating and reflective moments of travel. 

“When our travels include breathtaking destinations and/or ancient cities rich in architecture and magnificent structures, our visual cortex (the part of the brain responsible for sight) becomes activated, and together, with the parietal and frontal lobes, [they] delight in the richness of the sensory and aesthetic experience,” says Rogers. 

Some breathtaking locations that have given me this same reaction that Rogers speaks of? Wading in the blue lagoons of Iceland, floating in the Dead Sea in Jordan, hiking through Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park, riding in a rickshaw under the towering bamboo forest in Kyoto and turning on a road to see Lake Como reveal itself for the first time. This summer, I’ll be fulfilling a bucket list trip to Hvar and Dubrovnik in Croatia, as well as the countryside and beach towns of Sicily, Italy. I haven’t even arrived yet, and I already feel an instant endorphin boost when I look at my calendar and research the best places to visit during my stay. The reminder that something new and beautiful awaits will never get old.

Photo by Ground Picture/Shutterstock.com