Why We Keep Traveling But Feel Less Changed

[0:00] Do you remember the first trip that truly changed you? Maybe it was the first time you heard another language spoken around you all day, or maybe it was getting lost somewhere unfamiliar. Maybe it was a conversation with someone you never saw again. But lately, have you noticed that travel feels different? [0:19] Not worse necessarily, but just flatter? We're traveling more than ever these days. We're documenting everything. We have unlimited recommendations, guides, itineraries, TikToks, now AI-generated travel plans. So why do so many trips feel emotionally forgettable now? Why do we come home with thousands of photos and videos, but don't feel changed or impacted at all?

[0:46] My name is Kiara and I'm the host of Put the Guidebook Down. Today I want to talk about why modern travel feels emotionally different and what we may be losing in the process. Travel used to require more presence. If we think back to a different time, people had maps or no maps, [1:05] people had to print out their directions for getting somewhere, people got lost all the time, and when people actually had apologized for being late and getting lost, we actually believed them. People had to rely on word of mouth directions from locals. There was less documentation, no digital footprint, a lot of uncertainty, and fewer expectations. [1:27] Now think about it in this day and age with how we travel. We have social media to cross reference for different places that we can visit. We have all these travel review platforms that are peer reviewed so that we know what we're booking and paying for is legit. We also have hyper documentation as a constant pressure, [1:49] feeling the need to take photos of every single little thing and videos to post online or to keep in our own camera roll, knowing very well that we're not gonna look at the thousandth photo of that rock or stone wall that the tour guide pointed out to you. [2:03] And probably on top of that, you're probably gonna forget why it was so special. It's just a lot of overexposure going on, a lot of different pressures, a lot of different tools to use, and then you add AI on top of it to help with your planning. It's all just super simple now, which is great. [2:20] It has so many benefits and it's really helped us expedite our travel, help us expedite our planning and really make travel more accessible for everyone. But this means on the other side that we've removed the friction from travel. And by removing the friction of travel, we may have also removed the part of what made it transformative.

[2:39] I think back to many of my conversations with fellow travelers now that I meet while backpacking or just in travel groups, and when I ask them how they found out or selected this destination, the majority of people say social media. A smaller percentage will say word of mouth, [2:57] and even a smaller percentage at this point in time will say from AI. So it speaks to the power of these tools in social media. But then when you take it a step further and ask them how they plan their trip, the majority of people now are switching either directly to guided tours that have [3:12] everything put together with them, a lot more of a luxurious experience to try to cater to the high end of travel, or many more, including people in older populations, are just saying, I use ChatGPT or AI to help plan my travel. And if you've been with me on some of my other previous episodes, [3:31] you know that by using some of these tools, we're removing the curiosity or the fact checking that comes with them and just accepting the surface level output from them for our travel planning. Which again can be very good, but also on the other side has its consequences. One of them is that over planning reduces novelty perception. [3:51] Studies in neuroscience show novelty and unpredictability help create stronger emotional memories because the brain pays more attention to unfamiliar experiences. And I think anyone who lives in a bigger city can kind of relate to this because there's just so much going on around you. You're hyper exposed to everything that you somewhat become immune to it and you [4:13] fall into a routine. But then insert someone who comes into the city for the first time, there's just so many new sounds, sights, smells to digest. They're hyper aware of what's going on around them, and that's why they may notice the person doing a dance on the sidewalk versus a local who may not, because they're [4:33] either aware of that person always being there or they're just so used to the hyper exposure they've started blocking it out. And this also is backed up by the Google Maps effect, where research shows that relying on GPS reduces spatial memory and active engagement with the environments around us because we're so focused on what Google [4:52] Maps is saying. And I'll admit, I'm guilty of this sometimes, especially if you're in a completely unknown environment. You're just staring at your phone trying to figure out where you're going on the maps, that you're losing track of all the sites around you. So even the act of getting lost [5:07] used to force us to engage more deeply with a place, and that has been taken away from the convenience of these tools like Google Maps. So then you have to ask yourself, are we experiencing travel or efficiently completing it? And I talked about this in our way of making travel like a hustle culture, and this [5:27] checklist travel just becomes another way to fuel into the gratification from checking things off your itinerary. Another question to reflect upon is, has convenience made travel emotionally thinner? Are you feeling the impact of being in a destination and the effects from leaving it? And what happens when every moment is optimized beforehand? [5:50] You can optimize a trip perfectly and still feel absolutely nothing. And that's when we really start to lose sight of what travel really is.

[6:09] And I think part of this also goes into the earlier point about social media and the power of the tool and how it's influencing our travel, because we're not discovering places anymore. We're just recognizing them. There's so many videos and photos out there, whether from online and AI or in social media search, that it's killed the emotional discovery that comes with visiting these places, because you can see it online. You go to the place and you're like, yep, what it looks like. Cool. And then you move along. [6:29] Whereas in the previous days where there wasn't this type of level of technology or tool access, people would go to those places and really sit and digest the monuments because they didn't know what it looked like before or... One could argue that there wasn't much else to do, [6:45] but it was that feeling of discovery and actually taking in one of the landmarks. And a lot of travel today doesn't feel like discovery anymore. It just feels like recognition. And I know we already talked about this whole like seeing places before arrival because of social media and the internet, [7:04] but then if we take it even further when we're talking about content creation for our social media profiles, people already know the angles for photos and videos that they have to take because of all the content online. So then you're expecting the moment rather than feeling the surprise that comes with it. [7:21] And I think back to some of those iconic landmarks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Pyramids of Giza, like where people always do the holding the artifact. Photos are super cheesy, but people still do them. It's all from the angles and the prep work that we now feel to go to these [7:39] destinations just in the anticipation of creating the content to prove that we've been there. Psychological research shows that repeated exposure reduces the emotional intensity when we actually experience that destination or experience. Our brains respond strongly to novelty, but when we've already consumed hundreds of videos of a place before arriving, aka doom scrolling, [8:05] part of the emotional impact is already gone. And we have the possibility to experience disappointment for when we show up to these destinations and we had so much anticipation or expectations that when we get there it doesn't meet them, then we just feel disappointed and it can cast a negative light on the rest of the [8:22] trip just because it didn't meet the photo that you expected to create. Which like, shouldn't have to be like that. We're putting a lot of pressure on destinations that have been standing strong for centuries. Like, leave room for surprise. Leave room for excitement. Because I feel that now modern travel has ruined some of these surprises. [8:43] Unless you're going to one of the places that aren't widely recognized online these days, which even now people are making it a priority to go to those destinations to create the content for them and create those categories. We're not gonna go into that here, but. [8:56] It starts to ruin the surprise for you because you already know what to expect. It's like getting a present for your birthday that you were already snooping and already knew and you had to fake the surprise once you get it. That's kind of like what travel is turning into.

[9:08] And I think one of the experiences that comes to mind is Egypt, because Egypt's a bucket list destination for many people and I've many people study it for a long time just because it's built into our social studies and history curricula from school that have been seeing these images for a long time. [9:29] It's super fascinated by the Egyptian culture, that when you get there that you feel like you've already seen it, and some people still have that moment where you're like, my gosh, I can't believe I'm actually here, whereas others then are just like, meh, I've seen this before, take a picture and move on. So we're losing the [9:46] appreciation for being in the moment and experiencing the greatness of these landmarks and destinations that we have traveled so far to get to. And this is when I started to have this realization in my own personal travels, that because I've seen something on TikTok or I've seen so many photos of a different place prior to [10:08] my arrival that I wasn't as appreciative for being there as I probably should have been or wanted to be. I realized I had emotionally visited those places before I even got there. Nothing feels hidden anymore, and maybe that's part of why nothing feels transformative. So then how do we get back to the basics? [10:28] How do we get back to experiencing and being in that kind of growth of transformation from travel? And it's really going back to documentation. Documentation competes with presence. Modern travel often feels less like living and more like producing evidence that we lived. People are constantly taking photos and videos, [10:50] immediately focusing on posting it to their profiles or stories. And there's pressure to capture everything. And as I mentioned earlier, you're most likely never going to look at all of those photos or videos again. You're just going to focus on the few that you really liked and the rest are going [11:05] to take up space in your camera roll. And this goes into the whole performance travel and performative travel that I spoke about in one of my previous episodes, is that you're just looking to create some kind of facade or ideal setup, which may not be an accurate reflection of where you are, what you're feeling, [11:23] and of the true destination, like the local culture, language, history, experience there. And then that therefore reshapes the narrative of that area. And it can be either in a positive light or a negative light. It all depends on the storyteller, which history has shown us. [11:40] And I know I'm not the only one that's been annoyed by the constant influencers taking up spots or the selfie sticks or all the cameras and drones coming into shots when you're just trying to sit in and take in the atmosphere. But the issue goes a little bit deeper than that, and on the psychological level, when it [11:57] comes to this whole photo taking impairment effect, because we're so focused on taking those photos and videos that the excessiveness of it can impair our memory retention. Research finds that constantly photographing experiences can reduce how well we remember them because the brain outsources our memory to that device. [12:19] And this cognitive offload is something that many researchers worry about when it comes to AI, because people are just feeding into the AI tools that they're using and not really focusing on digesting the content outputs or what they're putting into them. [12:35] So this is all to say that we need to bring back our focus onto mindfulness and really maybe think about the content we're taking. If your phone disappeared, would the experience still feel meaningful? That's a huge one. Why are you even visiting the destination in the first place? [12:52] Is it just to take those photos and videos and brag about it? Or is it because you really had an interest and want to experience that location? Have we confused documentation with connection? This is a huge one, and I've experienced this in my own travel, where from myself I've been focused on creating the content for my blog, [13:12] for my video to showcase on social media, that I've forgotten to live in the moment. And I've seen this also with people in my hostels, where they're so focused on wanting to go to these TikTok famous destinations off the regular itinerary or what they had planned just because they want to create the content for that area, [13:33] which if that's your job, that's fine. But you need to reflect that you may be living your life now through a camera, and how that makes you feel. Sometimes we leave a destination with perfect content, but no emotional imprint. And that's a missed opportunity. You pay thousands of dollars to experience no growth, [13:52] no emotional connection to the area, maybe not even to learn anything. Some people don't even go to learn about the destination, just to take photos and videos. And this leads into how travel as an industry is becoming more about consumption and not transformation. Modern travel culture rewards the accumulation. [14:12] People have their country counts and their People want to go to all the bucket lists and seven wonders of the world. People are maximizing out their itineraries to the point they like to brag about how they need a vacation from their vacation. It's all about optimize, optimize, optimize. [14:26] This is why we're seeing now some people challenge that approach to slow down, and we're seeing the rise of the category of slow travel, because people now are experiencing travel burnout. And when there's travel burnout, the tourism in that destination gets linked to fatigue and reduces satisfaction, which can impact the tourism in that area, [14:53] which ultimately leads to an impact on the local economy. And I always like to then ask myself and people, like, am I doing this for myself and my true interests or from societal pressures or trying to prove something online through social media profiles or to prove to people that I've really traveled to a destination? [15:14] It's like what I said in my trip to India, it's like people feel that if they go, they have to go to the Taj Mahal, because if you didn't go to the Taj Mahal, did you really go to India? And it doesn't have to be like that. [15:24] It takes us having an agreement that it's okay to travel not as a checklister and to slow down and not necessarily see everything that social media travel influencers tell you to see. It's okay to let your travel be for you. It's okay to do that. But we shouldn't have to tell ourselves that it's okay.

[15:50] So then you may be asking, what do we do about all of this? My first thing is, I've said this before, you gotta leave room for uncertainty. Stop planning every hour. Let there be moments for you to get insights or recommendations from locals or other fellow travelers, [16:06] or just time to explore and be present in the present moment. Like I referenced before, sitting in front of a landmark for a longer period of time is okay. Just watch your surroundings, take in the sights and smells, and acknowledge where you are. Not everyone gets the opportunity to go where you are. [16:28] Acknowledge that and have appreciation for it. The next one is something that I'm personally working on myself, is to delay documentation. Experience first, and then capture later. Learn about what you're discovering on your tour, actually ask questions, and then only take the photos and videos that you need to take for your own use. [16:52] So what my goal now is that when I'm going through some kind of tour or travel experience, I experience, I listen, I participate, and then I take max five photos or videos from that one experience. I'm on a tour, I'm not taking 100 photos anymore because I know I'm not going to look at them and [17:12] most of them end up in the trash anyway, which means it's just time lost from being present and learning. So I just take five and it removes the pressure to having to capture everything. It allows me to actually enjoy my experience. The next one is to stop measuring trips by productivity. [17:30] You do not need to maximize every destination. You do not need to go to three countries in a week. You do not need to move a city after every two days. You can stay still. You can actually start to build a routine there. You can go to the same restaurants twice. It's okay. It's your trip. [17:50] Do what makes you happy. My next recommendation is to go deeper, not wider. And this is kind of playing into the previous point of slow travel. Try to interact more with the locals that you're encountering when you go to the cafe for your coffee or when you're sitting in the park. Try to initiate conversations. [18:11] Try to explore a little bit more of the culture. Stay, learn, and immerse. My last one is kind of not framing as gatekeeping, but is to create private moments. Not every meaningful experience needs an audience. This is your travel. Travel is personal. Travel is transformative. And we've seemed to lost those roots. [18:32] You don't need to share everything that you do online or with everyone. You're allowed to have your travel and keep it for yourself. Which leads me to ask, what's the last travel moment that genuinely changed you? Did it happen because you planned it or because you were open to it? [18:47] And when's the last time that you traveled or had a travel experience and then didn't post about it online? Maybe travel feels emotionally different now because we've become too focused on capturing it, optimizing it, and consuming it. But transformation was never supposed to be efficient. Some of the most meaningful travel moments happen in confusion, in slowness, [19:09] in discomfort, in conversations you never planned for. Those are the moments no algorithm can ever predict. So maybe the goal of travel isn't to collect experiences. Maybe it's to let experiences interrupt you. And maybe that's what we've been losing. Thank you so much to everyone who listened and be sure to tune into our next [19:29] episode that we release every week. I would love to hear your responses to my questions and about your travel experience and if you feel that travel is still transformative or if we've lost that in modern travel culture. Thank you so much everyone. Bye.