2021 02 Mag_S_PAcompressed

Happy
Plan
Americans finally have
reason to (cautiously) dream
about travel again.
TEXT STEPHANIE WILSON
If you’re wondering how
to be a good traveler in
the time of COVID-19,
look to the words of
ancient Chinese philosopher
and author Lao Tzu.
Among his many notable
wise quotes is this one:
“A good traveler has no
fixed plans and is not
intent on arriving.”
Fact is, we don’t know
when we’ll be able to
travel freely again, but
there’s reason to be
optimistic we could be
catching flights (not
feelings) sometime
in 2021. In November,
we learned that one
of the candidates for
a COVID-19 vaccine,
made by Pfizer and BioNTech,
was more than
90 percent effective in
preventing volunteers
from contracting the virus—news
that sparked
a dim light at what we
hope is the end of the
very long tunnel we’ve
been wandering in our
masks since March.
If all the wandering
has stirred up some wanderlust
in you, you are
not alone. And stoking
the fire of your passion
for travel is so much
more than just a guilty
pleasure—it’s an exercise
shown by science to
boost your mental health
and emotional well-being.
To which we sing,
“Dream on, dream until
your dreams come true.”
There’s some good
news for globe-trotters:
Although most people
have back-burnered their
leisure travel for now,
trip planning doesn’t
need to be canceled too.
“According to researchers,
looking ahead to
your next adventure
could benefit your mental
health,” writes Erica
Jackson Curran in National
Geographic. “Even
if you’re not sure when
that adventure will be.”
To back that idea up,
Curran points to a 2007
study published in the
Journal of Experimental
Psychology. Researchers
at University of Colorado
Boulder found that
FEBRUARY 2021 SENSIMAG.COM 31