Why are my worst travel experiences also my favorites? I asked a psychologist

Ask for my most controversial opinion and this is what I’ll tell you: there’s nothing more tedious—or forgettable—than a trip that goes perfectly to plan. Call me contrary, but I like my travel experiences served ‘bad’, peppered with challenge, and accompanied by a side of mishap.

But why do some of us favor our worst trips? That’s a good question; one that psychologists and philosophers alike have been pondering for centuries. Is it masochistic to find joy in discomfort? Is it odd to crave the exhilaration of misadventure? Is it strange to delight in disaster?

Or is it simply human?

The benchmark for what constitutes a ‘bad trip’ is entirely subjective. For some, lost luggage might be enough to ruin a holiday. For others, a trip is only considered ‘awry’ when it involves hallucinations in the Amazon or losing an arm in the desert.

One time, when swimming the blue-green rivers of Laos’ Si Phan Don archipelago, I had a terrifyingly close encounter with a carnivorous fish. The fish—a slippery cousin of the piranha—darted between my legs before taking a chunk out of a German backpacker’s big toe. Sure, it was a bloody, slightly traumatizing mess, but the incident remains my most loved, and frequently-told-over-drinks, travel anecdote (though I’m not sure how my German friend feels about it all).

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From a philosophical standpoint, Alain de Botton reckons the point of travel—especially challenging experiences like a piranha massacre—is transformation. According to Alain, travel helps us in our “inner evolution”; moving our personal narrative forward and pushing us to develop qualities like resilience and creativity. And a cool head under gory conditions.

Similarly, Buddhism teaches us that suffering (whether it’s fear, grief or the pain of losing half a toe to a foreign fish) is not only an inescapable part of human existence but it can open us up to new, enlightened states of being.

Psychology, however, is less rooted in the existential and more concerned with what is happening neurologically and physiologically when we experience ‘a worst trip ever’. According to Megan Sinclair, a provisional psychologist specializing in trauma, the reason some of us love ‘bad’ travel can be attributed to how we create and store memories.

“When we experience a negative event, we often ruminate on it, which strengthens the neural pathways in our brains,” she says. “The more we think about it, the stronger the neural connection grows, and the easier it is to retrieve our memories.”

“In fact,” Megan continues, “our amygdala—which is basically our emotional processing center—uses two thirds of its neurons for negative experiences and only a third for positive ones.”

So if you remember a bad batch of Cambodian carbonara more clearly, and more tenderly, than witnessing the sunrise over Angkor Wat—now you know why. Your neural pathways are designed that way.

But does that mean we’re hardwired for negativity?

In a sense, yes. And it’s thanks to something called ‘the negativity bias’. The negativity bias refers to the way we learn from and use negative experiences more than positive ones—which explains why my brain associates Timor Leste with one bout of dengue fever rather than three weeks of tropical paradise.

The negativity bias is an evolutionary hangover. Back in the day, early humans would need to remember which plant was poisonous and where predators hunted in order to survive. But as modern humans, we continue to hold onto our worst experiences because negative events make deeper impressions on our brains.

“Positive emotions signal to our bodies that we are safe, and we almost go into autopilot when processing these events,” says Megan. “Whereas negative events require a lot more thought, and are processed on a much deeper level.”

But brain processing aside, why do some of us enjoy challenging travel?

Travel is not, as we’ve established, always fun and games. In fact, sometimes it can literally hurt. Take hiking for example: Every year, thousands of trekkers throw themselves at Sagamartha (Mount Everest), and every year, thousands of trekkers are airlifted off the mountain.

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Sure, the landscapes are a drawcard. I cried watching the sunset above Namche Bazaar and felt closer to god-or-whatever looking out across the Patagonian steppe. But my favorite hiking experiences always involve wild weather, lost gear or vomiting on the hoofs of a Himalayan yak (true story).

So is it masochistic to enjoy such extreme experiences? Megan doesn’t think so. She reckons our human inclination to enjoy risk-taking is thanks to a little chemical called dopamine—a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and motivation. “When we accomplish something or engage in risk-taking, we get a release of dopamine in our brains, which can lead to a euphoric feeling,” she explains.

This dopamine ‘reward’ can also become quite addictive. From eating comfort food to drinking alcohol, there are a heap of ways humans chase a dopamine hit. It just so happens that many of us find it atop a mountain. According to Megan, “there’s actually a rise in our dopamine threshold in adolescence” which is why we see experimentation and risky behaviours increase around this time.

Which makes me wonder: If some of our life-long friendships are formed during adolescence, does that mean we bond best through risky experiences?

A few years ago, I joined a video crew on a journey deep into Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. What was meant to be an Attenborough-esque gorilla experience was thrown into total chaos when our guide accidentally macheted a jungle hive and we were swarmed by angry African wasps.

It was pandemonium on an almost comedic level—the guides screamed, the gorillas ran, the wasps stung. And yet in the aftermath I found myself, alongside the rest of the crew, delighting in the mayhem like some destructive Greek god.

According to Megan (and this study) a sense of comradery after disaster is totally normal. In fact, sharing an intense event with other people actually results in stronger emotional bonds. Which explains why we make buddies so fast and fall in love so hard when we travel.

“Negative experiences are more revealing to our character, and sharing these experiences signals to others that we trust them enough to be vulnerable,” Megan explains. “If we have experienced trauma in the presence of someone else, sharing that experience may help normalize some of the feelings that arise and make us feel validated.”

And at the end of the day, that’s the beauty of a ‘bad’ trip—it can unite and excite, challenge and transform, frustrate and inspire. “Some of our greatest lessons in life come from enduring negative experiences… we learn where our limits and boundaries lie, so we can grow as individuals,” says Megan.

So maybe my most controversial opinion isn’t that controversial at all. If we subscribe to the psychology, we’re all hardwired to benefit, enjoy and grow from ‘bad’ travel. The worse the trip, the greater the growth; bigger the impact; and stronger the bonds.

Or at the very least, the better the story to tell down the pub.