One thing is for certain: we may not ever travel the same way we did in the pre-pandemic “era”. A slew of regulations limiting not only behaviour but also our senses is going to diminish how we get our dose of perception of the world around us.

We are still in a visual world. Will that ever change? Maybe, but not in the near future.

Hotel ohla, Barcelona

Visual theory tells us that our perception heavily relies on information presented in the environment. The sensory messages we receive through our eyes kick-start a process of recognition and analysis that ultimately results in perception and after, emotional response. The sensory messages are classified in “not enough”, “enough” and “too much”.

Sensorial normality and the everyday often carries a sense of boredom, a small amount of neglect toward the visuals that our eyes get accustomed to.

When you go to other places you are more aware of your surroundings and often you also become more aware of yourself. It is as if on your daily life you wilt a little bit and on your travels you come back to life.

If finding novelty, visual or otherwise, is what keeps us alive the trick may rest in how that novelty is achieved more often than in the travel itself. This theory also explains how many that travel a lot find parts of that boring since it becomes their under-stimulating reality, the “not-enough”. The heightened emotions that travel brings loose their value if they become the norm.

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

In the post-pandemic world, virtual travel may be the thing but how is it really different than watching National Geographic or any other tv show on travel? Why these do not work is because they lack the immersiveness of actually being there. You’re looking at places and facts you have not experienced yourself. Even if you’re looking at a place you’ve been to before, the angle of the image, the shot, it farley brings back a memory the way a photo that you took yourself does. When you’re the one capturing the images you recall much more than the shot itself and that is what triggers that immersiveness that you did have in the past and re-activates it. That is good virtual travel.

So what is the solution now? Get going and design your own personal virtual travel! Gather your travel photos, your home movies, your everything from one trip or many and do your own show. Not only that you will experience the travel all over again, but the act of making will give you immense satisfaction.

Stay tuned for examples!

 

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