What retreat is best for you? Sarah Tucker highlights the holidays most suited for
people struggling with issues such as loneliness or anxiety
J
ust returned from holiday? Lucky
you! Do you feel refreshed or more
stressed now than when you left? Have
you ever wondered why you can go to
one place year after year, and some
years feel refreshed and chilled and
others completely drained and frustrated?
Being a travel journalist for over 20 years,
I researched the impact of travel on our
psyches: why and how travel affects us in
the most profound way, allowing us to see
with better eyes the world around us and
be more aware of ourselves. Sometimes the
best souvenir from your travels is how you
changed and grew as a person...and whether
your sense of wellbeing lasts longer than
your sun tan.
External journeys you take reflect the
internal psychological journeys of self-
discovery. In this sense, travel has become
a therapy — a healing. Research by luxury
tour operator Kuoni several years ago
revealed that people are more likely to
change job, lifestyle, even relationships after
a holiday because it allows them space to
think, reflect, put things into perspective
and challenge their values. By observing
how others live, how happy they are with
far less, we learn to appreciate what we
have. For example, I recently returned from
Madagascar where people are poor and the
faces smiling in at our coach were more
genuine and heartfelt than those smiling
back out at them. Everyone in my group said
the same. When you see people appreciate
what they have, no matter how little, you
realise what you have. Observing the value
other cultures place on family, friends and
relationships makes you reflect on your own.
In contrast, places such as Monte Carlo or
Dubai or Las Vegas — where the culture
is one of vanity, need and greed — it may
be harder for people to appreciate what
they have (even if they have a lot, because
enough is never enough). Travel in the right
direction and the journey teaches you that
the stuff of experience is far more important
than the experience of stuff.Life changing
Who you travel with is as important as
where you travel. By choosing our travel
companions well we learn more about themand ourselves. As Ernest Hemmingway said:
“Never go on trips with anyone you don’t
love.” You don’t know who your friends are
until you go on holiday with them, because
no one holds their emotional breath on
holiday. Therein lies the healing. It’s not just
the physical rest or change they experience,
but frequently emotional wounds of loss,
regret, anger, frustration, or anxiety. Feelings
which have been there since childhood
and are deep rooted, which only climbing a
mountain or sailing an ocean will sufficiently
challenge. Enlightenment has become the
new destination. Every journey is potentially
a pilgrimage. Travel is the new therapy, as
people use travel to fix their health, their
relationships, their sense of self-purpose,
identity and worth. From the dinner party
one upmanship of who has been where this
year, to the trekking gap year trips which are
increasingly being taken by those who have
reached the top of their material mountain,
and realised it’s not the mountain they
wanted to climb after all.
Travel is like that. It heals if you go
in the right direction. And to the right
destination. For me, Canada is my therapy.
Its wilderness is overwhelming and visceral
and authentic. Others may find it brutal or
boring. But that is the wrong direction for
them. It doesn’t allow you to hide behind
anything. It dissolves the frivolous and
freezes out the superficial. Like learning
another language: by learning the detail of
how others express themselves, you learn
more about your own self-expression. By
judging how others live in other countries
and cultures, you realise the flaws in your
own. Your understanding of relative and
perspective, widens inextricably.Find your way
As you can take the wrong medicine, so you
can travel in the wrong direction. You return
with more emotional baggage than when you
left. More questions than when you left. Travel
triggers emotions. Travel is about switching
on, not switching off. You wake up to what
is important and what is not. It challenges
because you are moving the ground from
underneath you. It’s like an earthquake and
it tests your ability to think and not distract
yourself. That’s why many business peopledon’t like to do holidays. They realise how
miserable they are! Here’s a quick guide to
the breaks and holidays people suffering from
issues such as anxiety, loneliness or a broken
heart might choose to seek out:Loneliness:
Lonely people should not go on city breaks.
Cities are by their nature for those who
delight in getting lost in busy-ness and
want to observe but not be observed. They
are anonymous and not important. Lonely
people are best served by vast landscapes
of wilderness where in that unquestioning
space, it strips away all that is unnecessary,
diverting, and you are left with what is
important...ultimately, with the truth that you
are important.Anxiety:
People who are anxious should not go for
retreats which cotton wool you in comfort.
Mountain or hill climbing or any climbing
challenges perspective not only of what you
see around you but also gives a sense of
achievement longer lasting than any spa
treatment or transitional tan.Broken hearts:
Broken hearts are best served in places
which overwhelm your personal tragedy.
Places which are romantic and intimate
allow you to stagnate in memories, but not
to heal. Places which give you courage and
perspective dissolve rather than dismiss
your feelings. China is vast on every level.
Its culture is steeped in spiritual wisdom,
rather than, say, the emotional adolescent
materialism of the USA.In many ways, we have come full circle.
When people travel today, they take selfies
to say ‘I’m here, I’ve arrived’. But this does
not show self-awareness, it suggests self
absorption. And to heal this you just need
to go on another journey of self discovery.
But this time without the iPhone or the
announcements to the world.Sarah Tucker is an award winning
travel journalist, novelist, producer and
broadcaster. She is also a qualified yoga
teacher (sarahtucker.info)om travel