• Home
  • Blog
  • Destinations
    • Cambodia
    • Canada
    • Egypt
    • Finland
    • France
    • Germany
    • Iceland
    • Italy
    • Ireland
    • Kenya
    • Morocco
    • South Korea
    • Spain
    • Sri Lanka
    • Switzerland
    • Tanzania
    • United Kingdom
    • United States
    • Vietnam
  • Travel Planning and Advice
    • Travel Photography
    • Travel Products & Services
    • Travel Blogging
  • Travel Research
  • Work With Us
    • Travel Partners
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Independent Travel Cats

Savvy Travel Advice

Home » Travel History & Research » Travel Psychology » Travel Research: Nontravelers Live More Sedentary Lifestyles Compared to Travelers
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links it means we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Travel Research: Nontravelers Live More Sedentary Lifestyles Compared to Travelers

Last updated: March 5, 2018- Written by Jessica Norah 5 Comments

Did you know that travelers exercise more and engage in more activities even when they are not traveling than nontravelers? Recent research suggests that nontravelers live more sedentary lifestyles than travelers even when they are “at home”.  Let’s take a closer look at a research article in the Journal of Travel Research.

travel research

Research Study

We’ll explore a recently published article on the behavior of travelers versus nontravelers:

Litvin, S., Smith, W., & Pitts, R. (2013). Sedentary behavior of the nontravel  segment: A research note.  Journal of Travel Research, 52, 1131-1136. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0047287512457265 

How the Research was Conducted

The researchers compared activities of a random sample of 60,000 Americans who completed a mailed survey. Of these, 79% were classified as travelers (reported having traveled for pleasure or vacation in past 2 years) and 21% were classified as nontravelers (reported not having vacationed in the past 2 years). They were all asked how frequently they had engaged in 44 different activities while “at home” in the past year. These activities included a range of activities, including fishing, exercising, dancing, attending sporting events, jogging, going to rock concerts, picnicking, and gardening.

Research Results & Findings

Interestingly, travelers reported engaging in all 44 activities significantly more than nontravelers. The researchers controlled for variables like cost of the activities and physical intensity, but the differences still remained between travelers and nontravelers.

What does this mean?

Those who are nontravelers are much less active in their daily lives—getting less exercise and doing fewer recreational and cultural activities—than travelers. Nontravelers appear to live a much more sedentary lifestyle compared to those who travel. Researchers suggest that nontravelers may simply be less motivated compared to travelers.

So what do you think–what might account for these differences? Is it that nontravelers are simply less motivated to engage in all activities compared to nontravelers as the authors suggest, or is it something else? Do these results ring true to you when you think about the travelers and nontravelers on your own life?

Stay healthy and keep traveling!

 

 

Share this Post!

Like what you are reading?
Keep up with our latest posts and support our blog by following us.

Monthly Giveaway

Don't miss out on our exclusive monthly giveaways with lots of fun travel and photography related prizes! Click here to see our current giveaway and enter!

Monthly Newsletter

Want to keep up to date with us and our latest travel tips? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Being a subscriber also makes you eligible to enter our monthly travel and photography giveaways!

Thank you!

Please check your e-mail to confirm your sign up. If you don't see the confirmation e-mail, please check your spam folder.

There are 5 comments on this post

Please scroll to the end to leave a comment

  1. Darcy Post author

    August 12, 2013 at 6:56 pm

    This article is interesting. The topic is one I’d never really thought of before, but now that I think about it, I can certainly see its truth in my day-to-day life. All of my friends that are avid travelers are always doing a thousand things while those that aren’t, tend to laze a bit more. I’d never really thought about the correlation to travel before, though, so I thought that was interesting.

    Reply
    • travelcats Post author

      April 18, 2014 at 10:18 pm

      Thanks Darcy for your comment! Yeah, I think it may be those who are interested in traveling are just more interested in engaging in more activities. Perhaps they have more of a need to be doing things and having new experiences compared to those who travel much less.

      Reply
  2. Jackie H Post author

    July 13, 2013 at 6:38 pm

    Hi Jess & Ethan – Great website and congrats for putting all this together in such a short time period. I know it will only continue to grow. I just wanted to ask what is up with the travel research articles and where do you find this info? Will these become regular features, this article is very interesting about how sedentary non-travelers may be.

    Reply
    • travelcats Post author

      July 13, 2013 at 7:10 pm

      Hi Jackie,

      Thanks again for the comments, we really appreciate any and all feedback from our readers. We are glad you found this article interesting, I am not sure if most people will find articles about travel research boring or interesting:) I am actually a psychologist and researcher by day so I have access to tons of academic research articles and my goal is to post articles into the “Psychology of Travel” section at least once a month on summarizing recent research in this area. Depending on how interesting they are to readers, I plan to keep posting them on a regular basis.

      Jessica

      Reply
      • travelcats Post author

        July 14, 2013 at 5:51 am

        Jackie, You inspired a new post about why we are posting the travel research articles. Check it out here: https://independenttravelcats.com/2013/07/14/psychology-of-travel-whats-up-with-the-travel-research-posts/

        Thanks again, Jessica

        Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We only ask for your e-mail so we can verify you are human and if requested notify you of a reply. To do this, we store the data as outlined in our privacy policy. Your e-mail will not be published or used for any other reason other than those outlined above.

Laurence and Jessica Norah Independent Travel Cats
Welcome! We're Laurence and Jessica Norah, a travel blogging couple sharing our adventures from all over the world. We hope you'll stick around for our travel advice, tips, and stories. Find out more about us here.

Follow Us

Subscribe by e-mail

Want to keep up to date with us and our latest travel tips? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Being a subscriber also makes you eligible to enter our monthly travel and photography giveaways!

Thank you!

Please check your e-mail to confirm your sign-up. If you don't see the confirmation e-mail, please check your spam folder.

Search

Instagram

Follow along on our travels via our Instagram photos!

Monthly Giveaway

Travel Research: Nontravelers Live More Sedentary Lifestyles Compared to Travelers

Photo Course

Photography course

Giving Back

Charity Spotlight

Carbon Neutral Policy

Recent Posts

  • Slum Tourism: 17 Responsible Travel Guidelines for Travelers July 9, 2022
  • Nairobi Travel Guide: 24 Top Things to do in Nairobi Kenya May 27, 2022
  • Guide to Visiting Galeries Lafayette in Paris April 10, 2022
  • Allbirds Review: The Best Shoes for Travel? March 10, 2022
  • Guide to Visiting the Titanic Belfast & Other Titanic Sites in Belfast July 29, 2021

Archives

  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Sitemap
  • About Us
  • Work with us
  • Contact us
  • Home
  • Destinations
  • Travel Planning
  • Photography Tips
  • Monthly Giveaway

Logos, images, and content all protected by copyright. © Copyright 2013 - 2023 Independent Travel Cats® All Rights Reserved.
Part of Travel Cats Media Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. Company Number: 11524454.