Travel Tales

Podcast #018: Mental Health and Travel

2020-03-15
Admin

There is a beach, with orange sand. The blue sky covers the top third of the picture, which melds into a bit of sea and then a little foamy swell. On the beach stands a man, looking out to the distance towards the left. There is no-one else in shot. The picture is taken at Grand Popo Beach, in Benin.

Welcome to Episode 18 of my “Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure” podcast.

Following on from the previous episode, where I talked about my issues with social anxiety and mental health while travelling, this episode threw the airwaves open to you, where you let me know about your experiences of mental health and travel. There’s likely to be a second episode at some point soon with more of your contributions as there’s a couple that I received too late to add in on initial release and while I was going to add them in later, a couple more of you have expressed an interest in getting involved, and I don’t want to leave anyone out.

Topics discussed in this episode then include:

Inga

  • Finding anti-depressant medication in Tunisia when the doctors are on holiday

Hannah

  • The need to choose destinations carefully
  • Space and the ability to wind-down/chill out as/when necessary
  • The importance of detailed planning and defining itineraries, for example what to do and where to eat
  • Budgeting and finance
  • Understanding your own needs, and contingency planning

Amanda

  • Experience of anxiety in her younger days
  • Feelings around being offered a job in Japan at age 25
  • How Japan was completely different to Australia
  • How the change of environment affected her anxiety (and not the way you’d imagine)

Leanna

  • Where her PTSD came from
  • Re-learning ‘how’ to travel, especially solo
  • Planning and research in detail to mitigate PTSD, especially local travel
  • The need to ‘feel’ safe in different environments
  • How to mitigate when things don’t go to plan
  • ‘Grounding’ and connecting with your senses
  • Making sure ‘in the moment’ you know you can talk to people, or defend yourself if necessary

Kate-Frankie

  • The stress of feeling you need to ‘keep going’ in the face of everything else
  • The importance of rest
  • Self-awareness and fitness
  • Travel takes you away from day-to-day life, which can be a good thing mentally
  • When you need to travel for work
  • Mental Health Self Care
  • Part Time Travel and life-balance
  • The benefits of Solo or small group trips
  • All destinations work, but nature feels important for mental health

You can listen via the feed above, or via Spotify, or on your podcast app of choice 🙂 Let me know if it isn’t, by the way, and I’ll see what I can do.

As always, if you have anything to say about the topic, or indeed about my podcasting in general, leave a comment or let me know. There is a Facebook group for my podcast that you’re free to join: Click here!

Contributions this week are from:

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