Travel tip #157: Study shows travel is more important than ever
Published 14 days ago • 7 min read
Hi Reader,
How are you doing?
I just came back from our Ecuador & The Galapagos tour. After almost a month in this small but mighty country that filled my soul with meaningful moments of magic I was happy to go home, as I always am, but also quite sad to leave this incredible place behind.
It is rare for me to visit a place and think "I have to come back", but this is what happened there. And I was not the only one.
Four of the guests who were just on our Ecuador & Galapagos tour just rebooked for December 2027. This is the first time we have guests repeating a tour, and I completely understand them.
I love nature and animals, and seeing so many in the wild, doing what they do best: chilling, eating, having fun, being curious, interacting and reproducing, has been just great.
I am sharing the last few moments of this trip on Instagram stories so you can see for yourself and maybe join us next year.
2027 Ecuador tours update
After sold out 2026 tours, our 2027 Ecuador and Galapagos tours are live and selling really fast.
In May 2027, join us for a complete Ecuador & The Galapagos 14-day tour that takes you to historical Quito, the heart of the indigenous Kichwa communities, to the Amazon rainforest and to the Galapagos on a luxury expedition. Only 4 spots left. See details.
In December 2027, we will return to the Galapagos only onboard a luxury catamaran for an 8-day trip with an optional Quito extension. This trip launched on Tuesday and has only 2 spots left. See details.
PS: If you haven't done so yet, go listen to this week's episode of the Solo Female Travelers podcast where our Bali trip host and I talk about the Bali you don't see on social media, the culture that hides behind stylised and posed social media posts. It will change the way you see the island and the impact tourism has had on it.
On this week's tip I wanted to share the results of a study that Delta Airlines has conducted and which highlights the importance that travel has, now more than ever, in making us feel connected.
Travel is more important than ever, study finds
Connecting with people, after having just met
I often have heated debates with my partner about why you just can't get the same from virtually visiting a place, reading about it, or seeing photos and videos online as you do when being there.
He is very much an introvert on the spectrum and likes his alone time. He gets overwhelmed by people and loved the digital world.
He likes to travel and we have shared many trips all of which have been great. At this point, I have managed to convince him that traveling and seeing, feeling, touching and tasting a place has nothing to do with seeing it online.
With so much talk about AI and humans spending more and more time alone, with technology rather than with one another, I have recently started to feel, intuitively, that travel is more important than ever.
While AI can help us be more efficient and cost effective, it will never replace human connection, we are social animals after all.
Delta Airlines has conducted a study called The connection index that proves just that: we need travel more than ever because it is a social activity at its core and its essence is all about discovering the world, a different culture and the people who live in it.
The more accessible the world is online, virtually, through technology, the closer we want to get to it in real life.
The report states: "Travelers crave encounters that remain exhilaratingly offline: A landscape that must be felt, a conversation that can’t be simulated, a moment of collective effervescence that exists only if you’re there to experience it with others."
And I could not agree more with it.
The moment you taste durian for the first time
Here are some stats:
79% of respondents think that with so much being AI generated, seeing something in person feels more meaningful than ever. Younger generations feel this more than older generations, and some countries (US, UK, Brazil, Canada, South Korea) feel it more than others (Italy, Japan).
84% of global travelers say they feel a strong desire to travel and connect with new places and people regardless of what is happening in the world, a sentiment that is especially strong among Gen Z and Millennials.
80% of global travelers say travel is an important way to connect with new people and combat loneliness.
82% of global travelers say they have connected with someone when traveling, up from 79% when asked in 2025; and 83% say they’ve kept in contact.
37% of global travelers say their travels have expanded their circle of friends.
78% of parents say travel helps them build meaningful connections with others, compared to 68% of non-parents.
38% of global travelers say travel helps them be more present in their relationships.
73% of global travelers went somewhere just to experience, in person, something they first discovered online.
48% say a trip introduced them to a new hobby or passion
25% of global travelers say travel has inspired them to change their career goals or plans, 29% were inspired to move overseas.
The survey also echoes something I have tried to explain to my partner "Digital discovery makes the world more visible, but rarely complete. It exposes what can’t travel through a screen: The atmosphere of a room, the scale of a landscape, the energy of a crowd. The emotional gap between seeing something and actually experiencing it becomes the reason to go."
We get inspired by a photo or video, or even just a story on a magazine or newspaper, but then it makes us want to see it in real life, talk to the person featured, see the place with our own eyes, and then the image is complete.
How many times have you been to a place and realised it was nothing like what you had expected or imagine it to be?
Almost always for me.
Social media features places from certain angles, focuses on some aspects, but it can never provide the sense of place, and that is what in my case, helps me understand a place, see it in its totality, and put it into perspective.
This is what most places are never what I had imagined they would be like.
So many sea lions! And they are so loud!
You can't hear the sound of the wind against moving sand dunes, or smell the air of buzzing markets, or hear the music in the streets of a city. You most certainly cannot hear the grunt of sea lions. And these moments are what I remember the most.
Like with people, I never remember what a place told me but how it made me feel, and a photo or video can't make me feel the full extent of a place.
What most of us experience as well when traveling is that feeling that we can fully be ourselves, that we don't have roles to fulfill or expectations to meet. This is why we escape daily life to travel, to be ourselves fully, to express us as whole without caring about what others think.
This is constantly being discussed in our Facebook group.
The report expresses it best "Travel does more than introduce us to new places; it introduces us to new versions of ourselves. New cultures, landscapes and ways of living invite us to question assumptions, reconsider perspectives and imagine different possibilities for our own lives."
And 38% of global travelers say travel helps bring out a new aspect of their personality.
The main conclusion from the report is that there are "four ways travel shapes people today: It helps us belong to something, experience something real, become something new and ultimately change something about our perspective, our priorities, even our futures."
Do you feel identified in the report? Do you also travel to connect? Do you feel that travel is more important than even, to you, given how online and virtual our world has become? Reply to this email and let me know!
2026 / 2027 Full calendar of tours
Osaka castle
See the full list of our future trips below.
✅ = Trip is confirmed ☑️ = SOLD OUT 💃 = I or Meg will co-host these trips
2026 trips
🚗 Cuba: 29 Dec 2026 to 4 Jan, 2027 (New Year's Eve) >> Book here
🧘♀️ Bali:☑️ 20 to 28 Jun || ✅ 3 to 11 Oct [1 SPOT LEFT] >> Book here
🌮 Oaxaca: 11 to 17 Oct || 8 – 14 Nov || 29 Dec 2026 to 4 Jan 2027 >> Book here
⛩️ Japan: ☑️ 13 to 23 Jun || ✅ 13 to 23 Oct [1 SPOT LEFT] >> Book here
🐑 Iceland: ✅ 11 to 18 Oct [1 SPOT LEFT] || ☑️ 25 Oct to 1 Nov >> Book here
🎄 Xmas markets: ✅ 21 to 29 Nov || 5 to 13 Dec >> Book here
🍷 Georgia:✅ 5 to 13 Sep [1 SPOT LEFT] >> Book here
🇦🇲 Armenia: 💃 ✅ 13 to 19 Sep >> Book here (200 EUR off if you book Georgia + Armenia)
🦪 Croatia & Montenegro: ☑️ 31 May to 6 Jun >> Book here
🏰 Scotland: ✅ 10 to 18 Oct [1 SPOT LEFT] >> Book here
🦘 Australia: 💃 ✅ 11 to 22 Oct >> Book here [Meg will host this trip]
🥘 Barcelona & Beyond: ☑️ 20 to 28 Jun >> Book here
🎄 Christmas markets: ✅ 21 to 29 Nov || 5 to 13 Dec >> Book here
⛵ Greek islands sailing trip: 💃 ☑️ 29 May to 5 Jun [Meg will host this trip, Photographer onboard]
🐪 Morocco: ✅ 2 to 12 Oct [Photographer onboard, 2 SPOTS LEFT] || ☑️6 to 16 Nov >> Book here
🍝 Tuscany: ☑️ 13 to 20 Jun || ☑️ 5 to 12 Sep >> Book here
🦁 Tanzania Value safari + Zanzibar: ☑️ 11 to 21 Sep (Great Migration) || 23 Dec to 2 Jan, 2027 (Xmas + NYE) >> Book here
🇪🇬 Egypt: ✅ 30 Oct to 8 Nov [1 SPOT LEFT] || 4 to 13 Dec >> Book here
🇹🇿 Tanzania Luxe safari + Zanzibar: ☑️ 25 Sep to 5 Oct (Great Migration) || ✅ 1 to 10 Nov [1 SPOT LEFT] >> Book here
🦭 Galapagos sailing: ☑️5 to 12 Dec [Photographer onboard] >> Email us to be added to the waitlist
🇦🇶 Antarctica: 💃 ☑️ 13 to 27 Dec >> Email us to be added to the waitlist
New 2027 trips are being announced every week
🌴 Caribbean island hopping: 💃 💃 ✅ 13 to 20 Feb, 2027 [Photographers onboard, both Meg and I will host this trip] >> Book here
