The Best Trip You'll Ever Take

Vacationing with a purpose— to celebrate running a half marathon or to recover from a breakup—will energize and inspire you. Here’s how this mind-body getaway can refresh your life.

There are vacations you take to sight see and those you plan around a favourite activity, like surfing. They’re loads of fun, for sure. But the trips that will really have an impact on you and change you in lasting ways are the ones you take for a specific purpose. Known as intentional travel, these are the getaways that help you heal from something sad—a job loss, a relationship ending—or celebrate an accomplishment like a promotion or a milestone birthday. “Think of them as self-care vacations: They offer the opportunity to nurture you,” says Dr. Jaime Kurtz, , an associate professor of psychology at James Madison University and the author of The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations. “They let you stop, catch your breath, relax, and really look inward.”

Because they provide an emotional payoff that your average vacay just doesn’t deliver, intentional trips can be incredibly powerful. “They give us the time to really think about things in a way we can’t in our busy everyday lives, so that we can put what happened in perspective,” Kurtz says. That, in turn, can act as a catalyst to help us move in new directions. “By giving you the space you need to problem-solve, intentional trips help you make big decisions about things you want to change in your life,” says Dr. Sally Fisher, an assistant clinical professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.