Travel for Reflection: Wellness Isn’t Always Physical

Smoothie bars, Peloton bikes, vegan restaurants. These are all popping up within the travel space, from hotels to all-inclusive resorts and cruise ships, following a growing trend of individuals interested in self-care and wellness experiences.

Yet one of the most important parts of travel isn’t the physical wellness that comes from finally having enough time to exercise daily or use that all-inclusive resort or cruise to try eating healthier without spending more for a kale salad or an acai bowl: and that’s inner wellness, a wellness of the mind and spirit.

MORE Features & Advice

Travel Deals: Top Offers for February

The Lack of Diversity at Senior Levels in the Travel...

Making the Most of National Plan for Vacation Day

Don’t get me wrong. I hopped on the matcha bandwagon with all the other Gen Z young adults, and enjoy using my time traveling to try new and healthy foods or ways of getting more exercise.

But one of the most important wellness activities that travel provides isn’t physical, but mental: reflection.

Even going somewhere as simple as Florida can provide a much-needed break from a normal routine to reflect upon things such as your life, your energy, and how you derive meaning from everything that you do. Often our daily lives can be so busy, or at least filled with routine enough to demand all your attention be placed on the day-to-day tasks, like feeding young children, shepherding older ones to school and soccer practice and friends’ houses, and then working, that it can be hard to think thoughtfully.

Repeat this for five days straight, and chances are there’s not a whole lot of relaxing or reflecting, except to wonder whether there was a simpler way of doing it all.

But when we travel, we often have that time to reflect. Perhaps it’s in the early morning, when our bodies wake up to an alarm that doesn’t sound, and we decide not to sleep in, but to take a morning stroll around the top deck of our cruise ship, breathing in the fresh salty air and being one of the first people onboard to see our next port rise, lush and green, out of the warm Caribbean sea.

Or perhaps it’s at night, when the children have gone to bed and we can breathe easily and linger, sitting outside on our balcony with a cup of tea and our life partner, taking in the view of the ski hill and the incredibly clear, starry night sky dazzling above us.

I find that I reflect most upon my life when I travel. Perhaps it’s being around so many other people, travelers like me, but living entirely different lives in sometimes very different parts of the world. Or maybe it’s the joy of experiencing new places, ones that have often existed centuries longer than most of the places in which I live and work. Or perhaps it’s simply that I have the time to reflect.

Either way, I reflect when I travel, and I often end up being encouraged after traveling. It’s a reset for the mind, a way to take myself out of the life I am living so that when I return, I’m excited for the next chapter, whatever that may be.

So the next time you take a trip, consider this: do you reflect? If so, what spurs you to do it, and how does that reflection impact your life? You might just find yourself more grateful for the things you took for granted before.

For the latest travel news, updates and deals, be sure to subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.