The travel industry in particular felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic hard. However, the year 2022 sounds promising as the pandemic-driven lifestyle shifts hint at encouraging travel industry trends this year.

According to the Deloitte 2022 travel industry outlook, in 2022, air passenger volume and hotel occupancy will increase as travelers return to holiday destinations. That looks plausible because COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted in Britain and Denmark. Additionally, Austria and the Netherlands have eased lockdown measures. Even the EU has recommended no testing or quarantine for vaccinated residents. As for the US, major travel industry organizations have asked the federal government to remove the testing requirement for U.S.-bound vaccinated travelers.

As the restrictions are getting lifted, all that travelers need to do is to plan as they did before and head out. Let’s say you are in the UK where the restrictions have been lifted, and you are planning a trip to Middlesbrough. All you need to do is check the COVID guidelines and Middlesbrough weather to know how the weather will be in the coming days before planning the trip. Having up-to-date information about the weather will help you better plan your itinerary.

The trip will help you a great deal in taking your mind off the stress of your daily life. Also, it will be beneficial for your mental wellbeing. After having been cooped inside for a better part of the last two years, being able to travel again comes as a good respite.

Here’s how traveling to a new destination will benefit your mental health:

Promotes Self Care

Thanks to lockdown fatigue and the resulting stress, it’s quite easy to feel anxious and undeserving of nicer things. Treating yourself to a vacation – no matter how long or short, close or far – can be an empowering act of self-love.

Anxiety can make traveling difficult but planning a trip is a good way to push through that initial resistance and give yourself a sense of purpose. Apart from the excitement and focus that travel planning brings, the trip itself can be very therapeutic. It offers the freedom to do what you love, provides time to relax, and encourages you to live in the moment.

As such, travel isn’t limited to being a leisurely activity for some but ends up becoming an exercise in achieving a healthy mindset.

Boosts Confidence And Self-Esteem

Any traveler worth their salt will tell you that traveling isn’t always a walk on the beach, pun intended. In some cases, it might involve treading massive crowds in dingy lanes, getting lost in an unknown city, experiencing culture shock, overcoming language barriers, and more.

Dealing with these challenging aspects of travel helps people cope in their day-to-day life much better. When you are suffering from anxiety and deal with these travel challenges, it gives context to smaller tasks in your routine life that often feel overwhelming. To illustrate, traveling to another side of the world makes taking the subway across the city look trivial.

Reduces Stress

While all that everyone has been doing for a better part of the last two years is to sit at home, the increased workload and working hours have been nerve-racking. Sometimes all that the human mind and body need is rest. Being able to dissociate from work for a few days and head to a relaxing beachside vacation spot is a great stress buster.

Leaving the work stress and sedentary routine of everyday life behind for afternoon naps, walks along the ocean, and having nothing to do but relax will do your mental health a great deal of good. Take your family or friends with you and add to the overall feel-good factor of the vacation.

Changes Perspective

One of the best outcomes of travel is experiencing different cultures and the heritage of the places you visit. It can change the way you view life and how to live it. Something as simple as a different way to spend the downtime can have a dramatic effect on your mental health.

Travel can make you challenge the norm of everyday life back home and inspire you to implement positive changes. You can experience calm in madness during travel and realize it’s the way you respond to a situation that determines the outcome. And it’s all under your control.

If you have the luxury and resources to travel any time soon, it’s advised that you do so. Traveling to a new place and completely dissociating from the humdrum of your routine life, even for a few days, will do a world of wonder to your mental health.

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Traveling is rough on your immune system. Between jet lag, temperature variations, new food, new germs, inevitable stress and sleep and exercise disruptions… it’s the perfect storm for falling ill. Being sick while away from home is never a blast but I’ve learned some great tips throughout my years of globe trekking and my studies of nutrition and public health to at least mitigate the pain when I do catch a bug.

The preventative stuff that I have found to be very helpful:
 

1. Vitamins. Especially for women, it’s a good idea to get your vitamin levels checked before you travel. Being iron, vitamin D and B12 deficient is common and often overlooked. This can have a huge effect on your immune system and, combined with the exhaustion of travel can lead to you becoming particularly susceptible to colds, flus, etc.

2. Echinacea. A great preventative if you feel a cold / flu coming on.

3. A multi B-vitamin – great for energy and immunity (and for mornings after you’ve been partying a little too late).

4. Cold / flu meds: lozenges, fever reducers, a few herbal tea bags, etc. The last things you want to go searching for in case you get sick.

5. WATER! Drink plenty of water starting from the moment you get to the airport and through security. It’s so easy to get dehydrated and that is not fun.

6. Probiotics for a happy gut. I like Culturelle.

7. Pack a bunch of healthy bars to snack on so you don’t end up scarfing down something greasy. My favorites are Kind bars, 18 rabbits, Pure bars and Zing bars.

Once you arrive to your destination:
 

1. Relax! Recuperate. Even a six hour flight is taxing on your system. Don’t push yourself. Check in with your body and do some stretches (I don’t go anywhere without my yoga mat) and breathing exercises to get rebalanced.

2. Make sure you catch up on sleep – this is the number one thing that can make you feel run down and lower your immune defenses. The next is healthy eating.

3. Find some fresh fruits and veggies. You can eat all the vitamins you want, but nothing compares to the power of the antioxidants in fresh foods. If I’m in a rush, I just buy a few fruits and veggies and wash and peel them in my hotel room.

4. WASH YOUR HANDS. A LOT. Do this and you’ll prevent the majority of potential illness.

5. Keep well hydrated. Changing time zones and temperature zones will throw off your thirst and hunger mechanism and flying is dehydrating. Make sure you’re drinking plenty of water constantly.

Bon voyage & safe travels!

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