Why does travel change some people, while leaving others exactly as they were?
In this episode, Rajan speaks to Dr Andrew Stevenson, psychologist and author of The Psychology of Travel, about how travel only changes how we see other people if we actually meet them as equals. Staying in hotels, being served by staff, and moving through a country as a tourist can expose us to another culture without necessarily bringing us any closer to it.
Andrew draws on psychology, from Solomon Asch’s experiments on conformity to contact theory and developmental psychology, to explore why some journeys genuinely alter us while others leave us looking for the nearest Irish pub in Mexico City.
Along the way, he explains what TripAdvisor tells us about conformity, why unfamiliar places can make us more curious, and what happened when a five-week cycle across Malaysia taught him to let go of his jars of Marmite.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit travelthatmademe.substack.com
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