What is Mindful Travel? Start Conscious Traveling Here
Written by: Sini Hietaharju, Master of Tourism Research & Slow Traveller
What is mindful travelling?
Discover the philosophy, benefits, and practical steps to start conscious journeys that matter.
Do you know the feeling when, after a vacation, you feel like you need another vacation to recover?
Well, this won’t be the case after mindful traveling.
Mindful travel means immersing oneself in experiences with all senses, rather than following a bucketlist or schedule full of activities.
After reading this guide, you will understand the core idea and philosophy of mindful travelling, and how to do it yourself with simple, practical tips.
What is Mindful Travel? A Simple Definition
Mindful travel means deepening the experience of travel with intention, exploring the way that suits you instead of following trends and bucketlist, and taking the journey slower to enjoy it with all your senses.
Mindful travel is about experiencing travel deeply, rather than ticking off bucketlist items or “doing it for the gram”.
Mindful travel is often more sustainable than mass tourism, as it focuses on cultural immersion, a conscious way of exploring, and being fully present in the moment.
It’s about trading the rush and queuing into packed attractions with calm landscapes, cozy cafeterias and sunsets with a book.
Just like mindfulness helps to connect with mind, body and soul, mindful travel allows to connect with the place, its culture and yourself.
4 Core Principles Of Mindful Travel
Mindfulness:Focus on the here and now with curiousattitude and presence
Intention: Having a clear “why” before, furing and after a trip
Respect: Instead of acting like a terrible mass tourist, mindful traveler respects the local culture and environment
Simplicity: Choosing quality over quantity in travel
Why Mindful Travel is More Than a Trend
You could say mindful travel started with the slow food concept from Italy. It was a rebellion against fast food industry.
Mindful travel is similarly the alternative to mass tourism with its negative effects on destinations, cultures, and even the travellers themselves.
Slowing down is an antidote for all our modern solutions that have become a problem: rushing, dopamine spikes, overstimulated nervous system and environmental crisis.
Social media has turned traveling into something that needs to be performed, captured, and optimized into high-performance art.
In this modern world, we rather need a pause, silence and meaning from our trips than a camera roll full of pretty, but anxious shots that stole the moment itself.
Condé Nast Traveller sites a research that found 96 per cent of US travellers want to explore personal hobbies while traveling. This does not mean anymore just fitness or tennis, but resorts are developing retreats around low-key hobbies that force us to slow things down.
This whole Slow Travel Repeat website aims to give practical tips on how to explore our beautiful globe more mindfully, the way it fills your soul and brings the spark back in your eyes.
What Are The Benefits Of Mindful Travel?
These are the six main benefits that mindful travel can have for the individual, from stress relief all the way to self actualization.
Stress reduction
Yes, traveling in general aims to alleviate stress from everyday life, but mindful travel does it actually in a way that you feel recovered and rejuvenated after your holiday.
Mental health benefits
There is even scientific data that a strong travel experience can change your life more than therapy.
How?
Travel breaks the mind patterns that keep us thinking the current life you are living is the only possible one.
Creativity & Inspiration Boost
Have you ever gotten a brilliant idea, when you are just about to fall asleep?
Or a great business idea during a relaxing weekend?
When slowing down while having new experiences in new corners of the world, this is even stronger creativity spark.
Gives energy during & after
You won’t have the after travel exhaustion and blues when returning home.
Rather, you might have gotten so fulfilling experience that you continue something at home after the trip. This can make your everyday life also more intentional.
Deeper Connection with Self
You can do more introspection when traveling mindfully, which would be impossible when rushing from one attraction to another.
Personally, I like to enhance with reading philosophical or spiritual books while traveling.
Self Actualization
I know, this is a big promise.
But mindful travels can become a transformative experience that makes you realize something fundamental of your life.
What is the Difference of Mindful Travel vs. Sustainable, Responsible, and Slow Travel
Mindful travel, eco travel, slow travel, and sustainable travel are kind of terms close to each other, but they do not mean the same thing.
This simple table should give you a clear idea of their main goals.
TOPIC
MAIN FOCUS
MAIN QUESTION
Mindful Travel
Your internal state: presence, intention, awareness.
"How can I be fully present in this place, in this moment to soak it all in?"
Slow Travel
Your pace and time: staying longer, going deeper, moving slower.
"What can I discover if I stop rushing and start enjoying?"
Sustainable Travel
Environmental impact: reducing carbon footprint, protecting nature.
"How can minimze my carbon footprint and ensure this place exists for future generations?"
Conscious travel
Ethical choices, environmental sustainability (sometimes also used as synonym for mindful travel)
“How can I minimize the negative ecological impacts while also supporting locals?”
Responsible Travel
Ethical, Social, Economic, Cultural and Political impact: Considering all aspects on responsibility while traveling.
"How can I best consider all aspects of responsibility, while still enjoying my trip?"
What Mindful Travel is not - 4 Myths
As you can see, mindful travel can get easily mixed up with eco-tourism and sustainability.
This is your quick conclusion of what mindful travel is not.
Mindful travel is the same as eco tourism
Eco tourism is more about considering the environmental aspects of traveling, whereas mindful travel focuses on internal reflections and holistic experience of the journey.
Mindful travel is only for spiritual people who want to only meditate and read during holidays
I mean yes, these are cool activities during travel, but mindful traveling can simply mean being fully present in the metro instead of browsing phone, enjoying a meal with all senses and walking around more mindfully than just capturing it for Instagram.
Mindful travel is for people who have unlimited time to travel
I would say the people who can only have limited amount of leave a year, need mindful travel more than these “unlimited free time people”.
This way you can actually recover and charge your batteries during a leave before returning to work.
Mindful traveling is expensive
Mindful travel works actually for any budget.
Just because you may not stay in a luxurious spa hotel, does not mean you can not slow down, become fully present, and enjoy free things like nature, calmness of mind and intentional exploring.
How to Travel More Mindfully: 5 Practical Steps
To make your next vacation, or simply a weekend getaway more mindful, start with these five simple ideas.
1. Intention setting before a trip
Simply ask yourself before the travel:
How do I want to feel during this journey?
What would my mind, body and soul crave from this trip?
This will help you experience the kind of experience you actually want, instead of rushing to see all of Rome in two days (editors note: not possible).
2. Enjoy the Joy of Missing Out
Mindful travel may seem like minimalism for people trying it first time.
You can actually remove a big percentage of activities from your itinerary, because you want to leave space to breathe and flow.
What if you suddenly walk into a concert in a park - with tight schedule you can’t stay.
The JOMO helps you to go deeper into experience - maybe you’ll remember better the feeling of afternoon coffee on your hotel room balcony enjoyed peacefully while letting the sunrays come to your face, when you decided to skip just another museum/attraction from your travel plans.
3. Focus on the whole travel itself
Your mindful journey starts already when you close your home door, not when you arrive in the final destination.
Have you ever considered how you can actually enjoy the queueing at the airport, the sitting in a plane, and the confusion on grabbing a taxi in a new destination?
4. Trade your camera roll into all 5 senses
Sometimes less photos mean more presence. If you always focus on capturing the beauty, instead of living it, it will actually slip through your fingers, while you are busy setting the photography angle and light settings.
5. Choose the attractions and activities that actually feel right at this moment
Maybe after a long work week a busy museum round is not what you need, but you’d rather join a local yoga studio for a morning flow?
Maybe it’s okay if you don’t see all the attractions, if instead you sit in a cozy cafeteria, and maybe even end up having a spontaneous, deep conversation with a local?
How to Make a Mindful Travel of a One-Week Trip?
If you are now convinced to give a try to this more conscious way of traveling, you can simply use this 7-day template to apply it to your next week-long holiday.
Day 1-2: Take your time to ground to the destination by walking nearby, find the local market and cafeterias.
Day 3-4: Choose one main activity for a day. This will allow you to see the things you came for, and leaves you also time to explore and wander around.
Day 5-6: Try one activity you would do at home as well. Maybe join a pottery class or yoga class, or go for a long hike.
Day 7: Choose either one more mindful destination, or take ome time on reflecting on your journey. Instead of feeling the “back to home blues”, see what you could take with you to your everyday life from this trip.
Frequently Asked Questions about Mindful Traveling
Retreat is normally an organized travel experience that you can book beforehand.
Then someone else has planned the whole experience for you.
Mindful travelling on the other hand, can be done anywhere, regardless if it’s DIY trip or an organised one.
You can travel mindfully even for a staycation or a weekend trip. To slow down, does not mean you need more time. It means prioritising and choosing with awareness what you spend your time on.
Your friends will surely understand if you’d like to opt out from some activities and simply stay in hotel or a cafeteria. Maybe you inspire them as well to do the things they actually want, instead of rushing from site to site to experience it all.
Mindful traveling is actually ideal with kids that naturally focus on small details in the present moment. You can learn from their curious attitude of wondering the world around them.
You can choose to travel more mindfully regardless of the budget. If anything, it can turn out to be cheaper, as you do only the activities that truly resonate for you.
Mindful traveling means also prioritizing. For example, if a luxurious, calm energy accommodation is important for you, it can be a bit more expensive.
If you would like to go to an organised, mindful trip, I recommend starting from retreats. Sites like bookyogaretreats and tripaneer list loads of retreats, varying from meditation retreats to fitness holidays and horseback riding.
Start Your Mindful Travel Journey
To start traveling more consciously, I aim to give tips how to practically do this. Continue planning your mindful trip with these sources.
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