“The world is a book, and those who don’t travel read only one page.” — St Augustine
And rightly so, this article will deal with all the psychological and emotional barrage generated when people don’t travel enough and self-isolate themselves for an indefinite period.
There were many instances of people going into a deep depression mode last year, as almost every region of the world faced lockdown after lockdowns with people starting to cope with the “new normal”.
For the active traveler, the world almost came to a screeching halt. With still no hopes of returning to normalcy, the travel sector is going through a rough patch. The biggest hurdle, according to industry experts, is the fear of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. These unknowns have literally destroyed millions of livelihoods directly or indirectly, bringing businesses to a standstill.
Moving forward, the travel sector is looking to revive its hopes to stay in the thick of the action. What the future holds for the travel industry is beyond the scope of this article that we’ll not delve into. However, this brings us to the point of why travel is important this year.
And there are obvious reasons. The ‘why,’ of course, is that people struggle to fight isolation and boredom; the thought of staying in loneliness for long can have a detrimental effect on one’s psychological and mental well-being and health.
Importance of travel
When health is everything
Those who stayed under quarantine may know how their health went for a toss. And lockdowns? Mention not. If failing to visit their loved ones is one, staying indoors for long periods negatively impacted people’s health.
Travel brings you a host of advantages including reduced stress, lowered heart diseases and mental anxiety.
Work from Home (WFH) professionals had to work more than 10 hours a day glued to their armchair all day along. Virtual distancing, however, is the last thing they’d want. So for many, even taking an escape route to the nearest forest, mountain or river will come as a big relief for keeping depression and anxiety at bay.
Of course, travel isn’t a panacea to everything under the sun, but it might make you feel better—both physically and mentally. Travelling regularly can positively impact your mental well-being, especially if you aren’t used to coming out of your comfort zone. Trust us: travel will definitely keep the doctor away!
Disconnect from your everyday life
The outbreak of COVID ensured that the needle called life moves nowhere. There is a growing disconnect from our day-to-day routine. And there is disassociation with life and everything connected to its pre-pandemic period.
Thanks to the second wave of the pandemic that is rocking European countries and some parts of Asia, unleashing a fresh round of lockdown in several regions of the world (at the time of writing this article).
Travel has to wait but imagine how exciting life would have been without these lockdown restrictions.
Developing new skill sets
Travelling helps one develop newer skill sets or hone existing skill stack. Research study has it that travel has the ability to improve your brain capacities.
Though the lockdown provided an opportunity for many to develop their latent skills, nothing can match the experience that travelling to a new destination offers to observe and learn to observe and learn stuff first-hand.
Unfortunately, the thrills and shrills of travel are missing, and the pandemic successfully curbed travel activities at large.
Understanding of new cultures
Travel brings the world together, while on the other hand, the pandemic guaranteed borders across the nations were shut temporarily and that the world went into self-isolation.
The dynamics of the pandemic ensured nations go into lockdown indefinitely. Travel is a means to synthesize different cultures worldwide, but the nature of pandemic is such that people disassociated themselves from the social borders.
Thanks to social distancing, hotels, restaurants, exhibitions and museums where cultures and traditions thrived were shut for most of the time. So dare travelling to places you are completely reserved about, but not without COVID safety and precautionary measures.
Opportunity to try amazing food
Travelling to exotic destinations is a great way to taste some amazing cuisines. However, as trying out different foods and drinks is directly linked to one’s emotional needs, the urge to explore the real thing for an entirely new experience.
By not travelling, you miss out on that opportunity to try something new, even if you were a guest of honor for a cookery contest. In a post-COVID world, hygiene is of utmost importance, and the new rules imposed by local health authorities have killed the hotel & hospitality industry worldwide.
Expands your (real) social network
Travelling, long before social media emerged on the scene, was the most effective tool to expand one’s real social network, unlike today’s virtual networking tools that don’t go beyond communication and chat.
Travelling offers engagement at a deeper level wherein travel buddies become business partners and even partners for life. Unfortunately, COVID, at its best, proved to be a relationship spoiler in that the sweet spots of personal relationships were tested during the lockdowns. Subsequently, travel restrictions knelt a death blow to whatever is real.
Home sweet home
There is an old adage, “East or West, home is the best”, often quoted by travellers who miss home dearly. It feels even better to return home then and unite with your loved ones once again. But, on the other hand, the pandemic was made ‘tied to the home’ experience, not an appreciably joyful one.
After all, who’ll not get bored having to live an entire year in the same place with the same setting, same people and same box of problems? How will you create new experiences when you don’t travel, though you may be full of new ideas and concepts? You definitely need a change of scene! You’ll sense how nothing changes when you don’t travel.
Well, now is the time to travel following the travel protocols, of course (before another impending lockdown comes into play). But, are the travel agencies, companies and tour operators watchful of the changes happening around them?
