It feels like we could all use some good news right now – and luckily, this year, travel has provided us with lots of reasons to feel hopeful and uplifted and that doing something we love – travel – can also be doing something good. The world of travel is showing us that not only can travel be good for us, it can also be easier for us and easier on the world whose travel treasures we seek to experience. 

Travel is good for you 

By now, it’s pretty well-known how travel is good for our spirits and stress levels. Read on in this newsletter to hear about a study conducted on one cruise line shows ‘slow travel’ at sea can even boost our brain function!

Another study says travel is anti-ageing! According to the researchers, “Tourism (especially including wellness activities that promote physical and mental wellbeing) typically exposes people to new surroundings and relaxing activities, and novel settings can stimulate stress responses and elevate metabolic rates, positively influencing” your body’s ability to repair itself and slow down the ageing process. 

Bye-bye botox!

We know that travel can bring families closer together, and family reunion travel is more popular than ever,. 

But travel can also bring nations closer together. 

We need travel more than ever- bringing people closer together and into better understanding of each other and the rest of the world.

Travel is becoming easier for you

We all laugh when we see photos of what air travel was like in the jetset heyday – bar carts and people in smart suits – and brace ourselves for our next economy-class flight. 

But in some key ways, even airlines are making life – and your next travel experience – easier. 

  • New regulations in the USA and Canada are reinforcing passenger rights to compensation and assistance when flights are delayed or canceled;
  • More airlines are offering inflight wifi to keep you connected in the air – more and more, for free! In December, 2024, for example, Air Canada announced it would offer complimentary, streaming-quality wifi, first in North America and ‘sun’ destinations, expanding to international long haul flights. So you can binge-watch your favorite shows all the way to your destination. 

And technology is helping to reduce some of our air travel pain points, too.  

  • Despite some early resistance, airlines are starting to embrace the trackable luggage tag trend. Take United Airlines, which recently announced it would be the first airline that would allow travelers to share their Apple Air Tag information with the airline to help locate missing bags and reunite them with their owners. 

  • And the number of airports implementing new security scanning equipment is growing rapidly worldwide. The new scanners mean you don’t need to remove your laptop or liquids – or anything else from your carryon bag! And are set to remove the liquid size restrictions altogether. 

    If you’ve already flown out of an airport with the new technology, you won’t be able to wait til it becomes the standard, not the amazing exception. The good news is you might not have long to wait. The USA and Europe already have a number of major airports with the new technology, the UK and Canada are underway in implementing it, starting with the busiest airports, 

Travel is Becoming Better for the Planet… and its People

Travel isn’t just good for the world, cultivating inter-connectivity and understanding. 

There’s also awareness – and action – to make it better for the planet. 

  • The airline and cruise line industries have net-zero targets in the coming decades and are investing in new fuels and new technologies to ensure we travel with the smallest footprint possible.
  • We’ve seen the elimination of single-use plastic in hotels, airlines, cruise lines and restaurants go from being newsworthy to being standard practice.
  • Hotels and resorts are hopping on the bee bandwagon, with Fairmont hotels and resorts for years cultivating bee hives on their properties around the world, for example.
  • And more and more travel companies and their foundations, like G Adventures’ mission to make travel a force for redistributing wealth to less wealthy nations, and Sandals’ commitment to local education and environment in the Caribbean islands where its resorts are located, are committing themselves to ensure that our travels benefit the people, economies, lands, waters, and wildlife of the communities we visit.
  • Some beloved destinations struggle with the impact of too many visitors, making life for locals difficult and expensive, and even changing the character of the destinations – which is what made them so desirable in the first place. We’ve started to learn about community innovations that ensure a balance of travel magic and community cohesion. And recently, several travel companies have started offering new experiences in ‘Second Cities’ – getting us off the beaten track to find the unspoiled cultural, human and natural riches we seek when we travel. 

I hope these and more travel good news stories inspire optimism for the future of travel and our shared world.

START YOUR OWN GOOD NEWS TRIP!

 

By: Lynn Elmhirst, travel journalist and expert 

Image: Getty 

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