Transformational Travel Integration
Travel can simply be a diversion with little consequence or serve as a catalyst for meaningful and lasting change in our lives. If you are feeling burnt out or otherwise unsatisfied with life and want your vacation or sabbatical to be truly transformative, the end of a trip is as important (if not more so) than where you go, what you do, with whom, or for how long.
Think of the transformational travel experience as being like baking a cake. The preparation phase of the experience–researching a destination, planning your itinerary, looking forward to the trip–is like thinking about what kind of cake you’re in the mood for, finding a recipe, and grocery shopping. The exploration phase–actually being on the trip–is like measuring ingredients, combining them, pouring the batter into the pan, and putting the cake in the oven to bake. The integration phase–which starts when you come from the trip–begins when you pull the cake out of the oven.
Just like a cake continues to cook in the residual heat while it rests, so does your transformational travel experience continue to develop even after returning home. The experience is not simply over once you return home. And, like eating a freshly baked cake, some may say enjoying the fruits of your labor in the integration phase of transformational travel is the best part.
Leverage the way your brain works
Our brains generally don’t like to take the scenic route. They like to take short cuts. These little unconscious rules-of-thumb, aka psychological heuristics, help us make sense of our experiences, form judgements, and make decisions. While prone to bias, these mental short cuts often lead to good enough outcomes and, if we are familiar with what they are, we can use them to our advantage.
The peak-end rule is a psychological heuristic that identifies our habit of being heavily influenced by a) the most intense part of the experience and b) whatever happened at the end of the experience. If you are trying to maximize the enjoyment of an experience, research suggests that you should try to end on a high note. So book a fancy hotel at the end of your stay, plan for something extra special, or splurge for a direct flight to set yourself up for a smooth transition into the integration phase at home.
Managing the Comedown
Coming down from a transformational travel experience may resemble coming down from a drug. Just as mood and energy may shift as the effects of a drug wear off, travel is often followed by post vacation blues. If you had a wonderful trip, you may be reluctant to return to ordinary life. Conversely, you may feel disappointed that your experience did not turn out the way they had hoped.
Here are some ways to ease the comedown:
Allow for adequate transition time–Don’t rush right back to work or other responsibilities. See if you can give yourself some additional unstructured time to adjust once you return home.
Schedule something to look forward to–Plan a get together with friends, make a reservation at your favorite restaurant, or even plan a little mini getaway to boost your spirits.
Engage in self care–Exercise, spend time in nature, eat well, catch up on sleep, be creative, spend time with loved ones, or do whatever it is that helps you feel relaxed, joyful, or connected to something larger than yourself.
Meaning Making
While humans are essentially meaning-making machines, being intentional about this process will give it the attention it deserves. Reflect on the aha moments that may have arisen on your journey and you will likely uncover more juicy inspiration and insights ripe for the picking. Set aside time and space for reflection about your journey upon returning home. This could like like the following:
Mindfulness, meditation, prayer, ritual, or quiet time;
Journaling to prompts or freewriting;
Visual arts like painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, or collage;
Creative writing in the form of a short story, essay, poetry;
Music making, write lyrics, or compose a song;
Dance and other expressive movements.
Spend time in nature;
Seek support from a coach, therapist, or trusted other
Narrative Therapy, a postmodern approach to psychotherapy, suggests that there is no universal truth, that reality is socially constructed through the stories we tell ourselves and others. Developing a cohesive narrative about our transformational travel experience allows us to find opportunities for growth and healing, reveal who we are, and uncover meaning and purpose.
Be mindful about the way you share your experience with others immediately upon return. This is especially true if your experience was more challenging. When people ask about your trip, consider choosing something positive to say, even if it was a challenging trip overall, and politely let them know you’d like to share more later. Give yourself some time for the experience to percolate and eventually settle in your mind and heart.
While bad experiences seem bad in the moment, they may be transformed into meaningful experiences through the stories we tell ourselves and others afterward. Bad trips, whether travel or psychedelic, often offer powerful insights or serve as catalysts for change. At minimum, adequate time and space may transform the experience as something you recall with wonder, a sense of accomplishment, and maybe even some humor.
Incorporating Lessons Learned into Daily Life
The sweet fruits of our labor, the icing on the cake if you will, is incorporating what we learned from our transformational travel experience into our daily lives. The whole point of transformational travel is not to simply take a trip. The goal is to transform ourselves and thus our “real life.” Therefore, incorporating lessons learned into daily life is THE most essential step. Turn your insights into action. Live in ways that reflect values that have been clarified through the experience. Address whatever behaviors lead to burn out or whatever it was that required transformation in the first place.
Do not allow the routine of your daily life lull you back into complacency.
Set SMART goals, eg Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Enlist an accountability partner, eg coach, therapist, or friend, to help you stay on track.
Identify ways to engage in activism or service that are consistent with your values. Being part of a community can offer a sense of purpose and ameliorate hopelessness and helplessness that may arise.
Do not allow the routine of your daily life to lull you back into complacency or bad habits. Carve out space in your life to connect to ways of thinking and behaving we commonly experience while traveling such as presence, curiosity, awe, openness to experience. Maybe even a willingness to talk to strangers? (Yikes.) In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, titular character Ferris and his friends play hooky and go on a string of adventures in their hometown as if they are on vacation there. They visit local tourist attractions, crash a parade, and goof off in the museum. Consider scheduling a day like this once in a while to serve as a booster shot. But more importantly, find ways to engender the travel mindset into your daily life. Find consistent ways to prioritize fun, exploration, and reconnecting with oneself.