I recently read an article in the KLM Holland Herald, the airline magazine, that told of Philip Pearce and his discoveries about the reasons people travel. After he surveyed over 1,000 adventure travelers, he found the top reasons and wrote about them in a book entitled Tourist Behaviour. The most popular reasons are as follows;
Reasons for Travel
- the quest for novelty
- the desire to escape daily realities
- the desire to strengthen a relationship with a fellow traveler
- to experience autonomy
- to experience nature
- for self development
As I reflected upon these reasons why many people travel, I concluded that many of them are indeed legit. When on a journey, there is a quest for what has not been seen or done before. People want to do things that are completely different from what they would normally do, hence they are on a quest for novelty.
With much of society (especially in the US) pressing many people to work a 9 to 5 job at an organized establishment, there is an ever growing population who want to escape the normal routines of what is “expected.” This is by no means necessarily irresponsible, but merely a different direction to pursue. There is much to be gained even if the intention is to escape daily realities. There are plenty of “out of the ordinary” opportunities to be found.
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The next two reasons for travel somewhat contradict each other, to strengthen a relationship or to experience autonomy, and yet they are both popular reasons for travel. Often it is a good idea to have time set aside for both sides of the spectrum, however, that all depends if traveling with others or traveling solo.
Experiencing nature by exploring the world is truly one of the greatest reasons to travel and rightfully makes the list. As I have said before, there are countless diverse and unique environments on this planet, all offering amazing beauty.
Lastly, people have a desire to gain self development. I am a huge fan of hands on learning, and traveling with the world as your classroom is not only a learning experience, it is very practical.
The most popular reasons for traveling are indeed some of the most accurate, yet there are countless personal reasons that can also be taken into account.
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