How to apply the best of traveling in your everyday life [1]

What if it was possible to keep all the joy and the sense of 'wow' even after your trip is over and you’ve come back home?

Actually, it's possible. All you need to do is to preserve some of the habits you have on the road and apply them every day when you aren’t.

But first of all, let’s see…


© Maria Angelova/www.203challenges.com

When you travel, you pay attention to events you normally ignore at home. For example, you are excited about what you eat, you wake up to see the sunrise, you remember sounds and smells, you spend time people watching, etc.

That's because everything is unfamiliar and new for you. When you spend a week in a city abroad, however, your excitement decreases and your brain gets back to its normal, not-so-special state. In psychology, this is called hedonistic adaptation - getting used to the good stuff in life, and it’s common to all people. This doesn’t mean you can’t change it, though.


Angkor Wat, Cambodia © Maria Angelova/www.203challenges.com

First of all, you have to beat the hedonistic adaptation. You can choose one of the two approaches - either to start paying more attention or to make sure you bring more diversity in your daily life. If you choose the latter, you will still need to pay more attention, otherwise you won’t feel the positive effect so intensely.

And as the idea might seem pretty obvious, it gets tricky when it comes to its implementation. To say 'bring diversity' is somewhat vague and doesn't change anything. So here are a few specific fun ideas.


© Lachezar Sokolov/www.203challenges.com