This month, T+L celebrates travel by highlighting all the wonder and awe you can find in this great, wide world of ours.
I RECENTLY READ AN article that inspired me. It was about how injecting awe into your life can change everything for the better. Awe, according to Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, is a powerful emotion that can generate a positive physical response and the amazing thing about it is we can find it everywhere if we just take a minute to be mindful.
“Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world,” Keltner told the New York Times in an interview about his book, “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” and what better way to describe the essence of why we travel. Shift your worldview, change your perspective, and guess what. Not only do you think you’re washed over with a sense of calm, your heart rate actually slows, your breathing deepens, you release oxytocin, your digestion eases, and – perhaps best of all in this hyperconnected world – you quiet that self-critical voice in your head.
I bet we could all think of a favorite travel experience that meets some of the top examples of experiencing awe. Small sightings of singular beauty. Immersing in nature. Participating in collective movement. Going on a pilgrimage. Witnessing the world through a child’s eye is a good one, and I need only think of watching my toddler nieces and their pure joy in the waves in Phuket. “Hoorayyyy!” rings in my ears. and brings a smile to my face.
The vastness of the universe? For me, that would be during the inky nights of a weeklong sailing in the Mergui, the archipelago off the west coast of Burma where there’s zero cell reception but there are a gajillion stars. It made me think in wonder of the real intrepid sailors who centuries ago navigated our world’s waters just by the celestial patterns so far away and so much older than we could imagine.
Many experiences of awe are tinged by fear. Skydiving – check! But also getting up close to wildlife; animals are unpredictable and nature doesn’t necessarily follow rules. I’ve swum with mantas in the Maldives and dolphins in New Zealand, both in the middle of the open ocean. Both were awesome experiences I couldn’t stop gushing about for months after. Both put me in check about how much of the world is a mystery to me.
Witnessing random acts of kindness. Well, I could likely find awe in that every day if I looked up from my phone more, but I certainly notice it almost every time I travel, when a local person takes time to offer directions, translate for me, or not only allows me to use the bathroom in their home but then offers a parting snack – thank you to the Mexican grandmother in the wooden house on the mountain pass between Oaxaca and Mazunte; you really saved that roadtrip.
So, now that travel is truly back for almost all of us, let’s take this month to think about how awesome it is. February at Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia is all about the #awefactor. We hope it’ll help change your perspective and inspire new journeys.
Image Credit: swissmediavision/Getty Images Signature/Canva.
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