CHAPTER 18

Assisting in Post-Trip Knowledge Extension

(or I Am Just Learning More and More About This!)

Still around the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate.

—J.R.R. Tolkien

Chapter Preview

In this chapter opportunities that travel provides for us to continue to explore and extend our knowledge in new directions after we return home from our trips are discussed. The ways that travel providers could work with us in these pursuits of further knowledge are also examined. The key idea is that the rewards of travel do not have to end when our trips are over, but rather can endure long into the future.

Continuing to Learn and Explore

Traveling gives us opportunities to learn about the world in new ways, and when we return from our trips, we can continue to build on that learning. (Davidson-Hunt and Berkes 2003; Pearce and Foster 2007). Extending our knowledge in this way can increase the joy obtained from traveling and can lead us in new and fun explorative directions. As an example of this, consider the following scenario.

Let’s imagine that we had an opportunity to visit some beautiful caves on a trip we took to the American West, and that this experience made us decide to take up the study of caves as a new hobby after we returned home. To begin to pursue our hobby, we decided to read more about caves and, through this process, we learned to appreciate the wonders of different types of rock formations found in them. We also visited several natural history museums that featured exhibitions on caves and learned about types of animal life and fossil remains that can be discovered in their dark recesses. In our studies, we further came across some amazing examples of beautiful cave paintings by early humans and became quite intrigued by this. Acquiring all this knowledge then gave us a new, more sophisticated framework for thinking about caves, in general, and motivated us to want return to the site of our original cave explorations again and again so that we could view what we first witnessed there with more discerning eyes and visit other caves in the vicinity. Thus, what began as one small experience on one particular trip blossomed into a passionate hobby that continued to take us in all sorts of interesting new directions.

Although the above story is hypothetical, the point is that the impact of travel can go on and on as we seek out new learning related to our different trip experiences. Travel providers could help us in this process by providing us with resources to use to guide our continued post-trip explorations. For instance, travel providers could make available to us links to bibliographies of readings or to lists of movies or documentaries on different topics related to sites that we visited on our trips. Depending on our preferences, we could also be informed about how to contact local people at our travel destinations who had expertise in subjects we were curious to learn more about, or how to connect with other travelers who had made journeys similar to ours and had related interests. All of this would provide us a chance to expand our explorations and make us more motivated to want to revisit again and again the special places that originally intrigued us so that we could dig deeper into our topics of interest.

Thus, returning home from trips would not have to represent an end for us as much as it could be an opportunity for new beginnings. Our trips change us and help us to see the world in different ways, and travel providers could work with us to be a springboard in this growth process. In this way, the relationship forged between our travel providers and us would not have to come to an end when our trips were officially over, but could continue to evolve and deepen over time (Noy 2004) as we sought out new knowledge and experiences.

The Enduring Moment

In all of the preceding examples, we have seen how travel experiences can add a kind of richness and freshness to our lives that is not often found through other pursuits. This is the magic that travel at its best offers us. Travel experiences, especially when we continue to build on them when we return from our journeys, tend to be quite enduring and this gives us a double bonus. This is so because the pleasure gained from having rich experiences has the capacity to not just stay fresh in our minds but actually to increase over time and get deeper (Trope and Liberman 2003). As an example of this on a personal note, I can well remember my parents telling me tales about the country of Panama when I was a child. Both of my parents had served in Panama in the Second World War and met and married there. They both retained an ongoing interest in all things related to Panama for the rest of their lives and continued to learn about the country long after their direct association with it had ended. This interest was passed on to me as well. It seemed that with each re-telling of their time together there and their re-showing of their souvenirs from this period of their life, their adventures grew more wonderful and glorious and intriguing to me. It got to the point that when my father would say, “Well, when your mother and I were in Panama,” I knew that a magical story and wonderful reminisces were to follow.

So it was not just the experience of being in Panama that left a deep impression on my father. Rather, it was also the joy he received from continuing to acquire knowledge about this part of the world when he returned home and his ability to relive his experiences there that added to his sense of well-being and satisfaction (Carter and Gilovich 2010). This is travel’s lasting gift.

Questions for Discussion

Please reflect on the following questions to think more about how post-trip learning can enhance the joy that travel can provide. As you do this, draw on your own personal experience as a traveler and/or on any experiences you have had in the travel industry.

1. Did you ever find some new area of interest during a trip that you decided to pursue and further explore after you returned home? If yes, what were some of these new areas, and how did you continue to explore them? What was the impact of doing this?

2. What sort of follow-up information would you like to receive from travel providers about sites or places that you visited on your trips to help you in your continued exploration process? Have you ever received this sort of information? If yes, what was its impact?

3. What does the notion of travel being a portal to a new way of seeing life and living mean to you? Do you have any personal experience with this? Explain.

4. Finally, can you think of any travel memories you have had that left particularly enduring impressions in your mind? If yes, please describe these experiences. What made them so special to you?

Notes

 

 

 

 

 

 

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