Plan Your
Best Trip
In 2018, Yale professor Laurie
Santos launched “Psychology and
the Good Life,” a course meant
to help stressed-out students live
happier, more satisfying lives.
The class quickly became the
most popular in the university’s
history. The concepts Dr. Santos
teaches in her twice-weekly
lectures—mindfulness, slowing
down, socializing—can also
make you a happier traveler.
—Aislyn Greene
How do you put what you teach
into practice on the road?
When we travel, we’re not taking
part in our routines, so it’s easy
to try out new behaviors that can
improve our well-being. We’re
also faced with new places and
experiences, so it’s often easier
to be mindful and notice things.
I try to savor the moment when
I travel, because it’s easy to stay
present in a new restaurant or
place. I also like to savor the time
affluence—free, unscheduled
time—I get on trains and planes.
I sometimes take breaks from work
when I’m flying just to enjoy the
time and be present. I like watch-
ing the world go by and paying
attention. There’s nothing I have
to get through on the plane the
way I do in normal life.
Why is unscheduled free time
so important to our well-being?
There are studies showing that
people who have unscheduled
time, and who commit to un-
scheduled time, tend to be hap-
pier overall than people who don’t.
Overly scheduled time can make
us feel anxious. Unscheduled
time allows us to have more of a
journey. There’s also research
suggesting that when we have
more open time, we tend to be
more social. When you’re running
from meeting to meeting, you
don’t take the time to talk to the
barista at the coffee shop—and
those simple social interactions
bring well-being, too. And be-
cause social science shows that
we’re happier when we connect
with others, I try to talk to new
people during my travels. When
flying, I’ll talk to anybody who
happens to be near me. Also, that
time after you’ve landed and are
waiting to get off the plane can be
super boring, but having a little
social interaction with somebody
can really make the time fly by
and make it more enjoyable.How do you suss out if people
want to talk or not?
There’s a study coauthored by be-
havioral scientist Nicholas Epley
called Mistakenly Seeking Solitude,
which examines the idea that
people think that no one’s going
to want to talk to them. But, in
practice, people do want to talk
to you—and they find it really en-
joyable. It’s another one of these
cases where our mind lies to us
about the things we need. We
think, “Oh, talking to this personnext to me will be awkward or
it won’t be that fun,” but in fact
that’s just a mis-prediction. It’s
always better than we expect.How would you describe the
American attitude toward free
time? And how does it compare
to other countries’?
Americans seem to hate time
affluence. As a country, we devel-
oped along the Protestant work
ethic [which emphasizes industry
and discipline]. Even people
like Benjamin Franklin were kind
of angry about people who were
idle—they almost saw it as a sin.
But the psychological data shows
that’s an incorrect notion: You
get a lot more out of free time than
you expect. Going abroad can
make you realize how much more
it is valued in other countries. So
when you’re traveling, try to drop
that American mind-set. Linger a
little longer in that restaurant, or
take a siesta break.When you observe other travel-
ers, what advice do you want to
give them?
You try not to do it in a judgmen-
tal way, right? But I definitely
see people who I think are doing
it wrong [laughs]. You’ve seen it:
People are at this beautiful beach,and they’re on their phone,
seemingly checking email. I want
to say, You’re missing it. Don’t
miss it.Why do you think Americans
tend to overpack their travel
itineraries?
Part of it is that we think we’re
going to miss something. What we
forget is that serendipity is what
we’re really missing—it’s the things
that aren’t on our itinerary that
are important.I feel like social media really
gave rise to that: FOMO, as well
as people wanting to visit the
places they’ve seen on Insta-
gram. Do you have any advice
for combating that?
My husband’s uncle was in town,
and he’d recently visited the
Leaning Tower of Pisa. He said
it’s hard to get close to the tower,
or even see it, because hundreds
of people are around it, pretend-
ing to push it for their Instagram
posts. And it’s like, really? Does
every single person who goes to
Pisa need that photo? When
you’re taking that, you might be
missing the accents around
you, or the smell, or other things.
Photos can enhance our memo-
ries of an experience, but we miss
out on all the stuff we’re not
taking the photo of—things that
can be some of the most powerful
parts of the experience.ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLARE MALLISON