Is Travel Worth It?

Travel doesn’t agree with me, so why do it? Does it make me a better person?

Photo by Nataliya Melnychuk on Unsplash

In the middle of a night in January 2025, I was on a bathroom floor by Vietnam’s Nine Dragons River, praying for my sickness to end. The cycle of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea stretched out through a long, horrific night. Truly, it was one of the worst nights of my life.

Travel simply doesn’t agree with me. My body is too sensitive to the drama of another place, and I’m allergic to practically everything. The flight alone sets off my sinuses and inflames my bowels. My mosquito bites always balloon into a swollen limb, and in the heat, I break out in unbearably itchy rashes on my chest and legs. It’s a running joke among my friends that every trip requires a visit to the pharmacy. As soon as I landed in New Zealand, I needed to go to the pharmacy. I fell on the way and sliced open my hands and knees. I walked into the place covered in blood, with my hands splayed like Jesus Christ on the cross.

Yet, despite all this, I travel constantly, and I love it so much that I never want to stop. Next year, I want to spend January in a far-flung place, and I accept the price I might pay is another night of praying on a toilet floor.

As I was about to embark on another trip, a friend said, ‘Travel is always good.’ I know in my heart that despite all its challenges, travel is good for me, but I’m not sure why.

I don’t identify with people who make travel their personality. I’m put off by people on dating apps who list the number of countries they’ve visited. I bristle at the implied moral superiority of the regular traveller.

When I arrived at university, those who’d taken gap years kept talking about how much more mature and worldly they were compared to those of us who came straight out of school. It was insufferable, and based on what I hear happens on gap years, I’m not convinced they make you a better human.

I don’t claim that travel has made me a better person, but it has made me a happier one. And when I’m happier, I’m able to be a better person. My year has been so much better for its regular travel, but there’s no moral virtue in it. Especially as ‘travel’ can mean so many different things. It’s very hard to get to the truth of a place when you’re a foreign visitor passing by, and my travel experiences haven’t necessarily been that ‘authentic’. While I try to eat local food, for example, I’ll only go as far as what I find palatable. I ate fried frogs in Cambodia, but wasn’t even offered red ant soup. The locals know how far into authentic tourists want to go.

So much of my travel is travel’s superficial cousin —the holiday. So much of it is going to places I’ve been before, and so much is going on holiday with friends.

As I get older, the uninterrupted time I get with friends when we travel together is precious. Conversations weave on for days as you break free from the tyranny of the irregular catch-up dinner. It’s on these trips that we create memories that bind friendships, and it’s where we see the best and worst of each other. It’s where we debate the merits of different airports, which, in theory, should be a boring conversation, but I love it. We all agree that Gatwick is the worst.

When someone says that travel is good, I’m sure they’re not thinking about the airport. However, I believe that the benefits of travel start at the airport. The journey shocks you out of your routine, and the airport itself is an assault on your nervous system. You’re trapped with people at their worst, and that includes me.

I can be impatient and unkind to people who don’t move through security efficiently. The worst are people who block other people’s bags by slowly emptying their trays on the conveyor belt. It’s a growth moment when I have to remind myself that not everyone has had the privilege of regular travel and mastering the art of gliding through security. My anxiety about time, like most my anxieties, are rarely real as I always get to the airport early. Therefore, my impatience is unnecessary.

Bizarrely, it was at the most stressful airport I’ve been to in the world, in Ho Chi Minh, where people were most chilled and jolly. We were stuck in large queues and all on track to miss our flights. My previous flight had been delayed and I had to sprint through large crowds with my big backpack on my back shouting ‘move’ and feeling like River Cartwright in Slow Horses. It was rather thrilling, and I made it with seconds to spare. We’re not supposed to fly, yet it’s fantastic that we do.

All change is uncomfortable, and travel is no exception. I wonder if the purpose of travel is the discomfort of it and how moving through that discomfort as we arrive at a new place gives us a feeling of achievement. It’s also the movement of travel itself which gives us the opposite feeling of stuckness. When we’re in momentum, we think that perhaps we’re doing life well.

Travel can be ruined by expectation. Apparently, you’re happiest on day two of your holiday because you’re settled in, but it’s still a novelty.

I overcome the pressure and expectation of travel by doing it regularly and by having a life I’m not desperate to escape from. I think the pressure of one big expensive trip a year is too much. The sea is my happy place and I feel my body calm down as soon as I hear the sound of waves. I make sure I have multiple dates with the sea across the year so that if the weather turns bad or something unexpected happens, it doesn’t matter.

My attitude to travel is that I’d rather go with the flow and risk missing some things than intensely trying to ‘make the most of it’. It’s like how I’d rather go to a dinner party with a relaxed host with average tasting food than one with fabulous food who’s stressed.

I try not to put too much pressure on my leisure time. I worry that our leisure time has become another thing we’re expected to optimise and also something to perform as we take photos for social media. I try to not be too hardcore with the itinerary or be driven by that fear that I’m not ‘doing enough’ when I’m away. I get that anxiety enough in my work life, I don’t want to take it away with me. However, some people love to be hardcore with their itinerary and some don’t like to travel at all.

The New Yorker published an excellent piece that made the case against travel, and with those gap year kids in my mind, it’s good for us to challenge those irritating traveller tones. The article talks about travel as a means to distract ourselves from our impending death. I think this is true for me, however, I’d apply the theory that we’re avoiding death to all of life’s projects from kitchen renovations to having children. They give us a focus, something to do that’s not sitting around and waiting to die.

Travel is just another one of those projects. I find the challenge and reward of it deeply satisfying. Some people can find the feeling that travel gives me elsewhere. Still, I believe we can all benefit from a change of scene. Shaking ourselves out of our routine, mixing things up, quality time with loved ones, and having a nice time before we die. That feeling of gratitude when we come home. Those are all excellent reasons to travel.