There is a moment I return to often. It was past 2 a.m., and the Turkish coastline was nothing but a dark silhouette against an even darker sky.

When our family embarked on our summer holiday to Turkey, my 16-year-old son stayed behind to practice water polo, planning to join us midway through the trip. The plot twist: that midpoint happened to fall while we were sailing the Antalya coast aboard a nine-person gulet. The original plan was simple, a driver would collect him from the airport around 9 p.m. and deliver him to a meeting point where he’d rendezvous with our captain.

Then the delays began. He missed his connecting flight, rerouted himself, and didn’t land until nearly 1 a.m. By then, the “meeting location” was a dot in the middle of the Mediterranean, with no proper dock in sight. A local driver took him as far as the road allowed: a pitch-black beach where the only light came from our tiny dinghy’s lantern, bouncing across the waves toward shore.

We picked him up like something out of a spy film, no pier, no lights, just a silhouette wading into the shallows. He climbed aboard laughing, exhausted, and utterly relieved that we’d found him. Grumbling that we were extremely irresponsible parents but also “kinda chill”. 

No gift I have ever given my children has matched that memory. No carefully chosen birthday present, no thoughtful holiday surprise, no beautiful object no matter how expensive or meaningful has ever been recounted at family dinners the way that night in Turkey has. This is not a failure of gift-giving. It is a truth about how human beings are wired.

Having taken my children to more than 20 countries, I have witnessed firsthand what decades of psychological research now confirms: the gift of travel creates something that material possessions simply cannot replicate. It shapes who our children become, how they think, and what they remember of their childhoods long after the wrapping paper has been forgotten.

The Science of Experiences Over Things

Every photograph reviewed, every story retold, every inside joke referenced at the dinner table years later rekindles the neurological and emotional benefits of the original experience.

The research is unambiguous. Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University, has spent more than two decades studying why experiences make people happier than possessions. His findings reveal that the satisfaction we derive from material purchases fades predictably as we adapt to having them, a phenomenon psychologists call hedonic adaptation. The new car becomes just the car. The beautiful watch becomes simply the watch we wear. But experiences, particularly those shared with people we love, become part of our identity in ways that objects never do.

A 2020 study by Dr. Amit Kumar at the University of Texas at Austin reinforced these findings with a critical addition: experiences create more happiness not just during or after the event, but before it as well. His research, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, demonstrated that people report greater satisfaction from experiential purchases irrespective of when happiness is measured. The anticipation of a trip, the trip itself, and the memories afterward all contribute to a sustained sense of wellbeing that material goods simply cannot match.

This brings us to dopamine, the neurotransmitter often called the brain’s “anticipation molecule.” Research from Harvard Business School by Dr. Michael Norton and his colleague Dr. Elizabeth Dunn demonstrates that dopamine is released not only when we receive a reward but when we anticipate it. Planning a vacation activates reward centers in the brain weeks or even months before departure. The excitement of researching destinations, choosing accommodations, and imagining adventures creates measurable increases in happiness. A material gift may spike dopamine briefly upon receipt, but that elevation returns to baseline within weeks. Travel, by contrast, offers three distinct phases of joy: the looking forward, the living through, and the looking back.

This is why the benefits of traveling extend far beyond the trip itself. Every photograph reviewed, every story retold, every inside joke referenced at the dinner table years later rekindles the neurological and emotional benefits of the original experience.

When Things Go Wrong, Everything Goes Right

My grandmother who had lived the first half of her life in the Soviet Union where apparently this was the best and only way to secure holiday accommodations, was unperturbed.

Here is where the research intersects with lived experience in ways that initially seem counterintuitive. The moments we remember most vividly from our travels are rarely the perfect ones. They are the misadventures, the unexpected detours, the situations that required us to adapt, problem-solve, and occasionally laugh at ourselves.

I think of the time we were driving through the Algarve region of Portugal and somehow found ourselves heading the wrong direction down a narrow, winding one-way road. For nearly a mile, we navigated hairpin turns and stone walls, unable to turn around. When we finally realized our error, we had no choice but to reverse the entire distance. We backed slowly, carefully, and ultimately right into a man’s property, where we managed to knock over and shatter his beautiful flower pot. I braced for anger. Instead, he emerged from his house with grace and humor, waving off our apologies with genuine kindness. My children still talk about that man. They do not talk about the perfectly executed days.

Or consider our arrival in Split, Croatia traveling with my grandmother and, at the time, two young children. In my younger days I loved using maps, the traditional old-school kind you’ll now likely only find in museums. I was adamant we could navigate without “navigation.”

Instead, we got lost. Went 25 miles in the wrong direction, ran out of phone battery, and arrived exactly in time to miss our boutique hotel’s check-in window. We found ourselves without accommodations in a city at 100% capacity.

No app could solve this. No algorithm stepped in.

So we went old school. While sorting out what to do and trying not to panic, a stranger kindly advised us we were in a pedestrian-only zone and would get a “big ticket.” Then he paused and asked if we needed a place to stay. His grandparents had passed away and left him their apartment; he rented it out to easygoing travelers who needed last-minute accommodations and had apparently never seen a scary movie. My husband was horrified. I was relieved. My grandmother who had lived the first half of her life in the Soviet Union where apparently this was the best and only way to secure holiday accommodations, was unperturbed.

He turned out to be extraordinarily helpful and welcoming, walked us to the apartment, gave us directions to the pier we needed to be at early in the morning and did not attempt to rob or murder us.

My children learned something that night about trusting the goodness of people, about adaptability, and about finding solutions in unfamiliar circumstances.

These are the experiences that build what psychologist Angela Duckworth calls “grit” and what author Paul Tough, in his book How Children Succeed, identifies as essential to lifelong achievement. Travel forces children into situations where persistence, resilience, and determination are not abstract concepts but immediate necessities. Research on child development consistently shows that children who encounter and overcome challenges develop stronger problem-solving abilities, greater emotional regulation, and increased confidence in their capacity to handle uncertainty.

What Travel Teaches That Classrooms Cannot

Adults who traveled regularly as children achieved above-average grades, higher educational attainment, and incomes 12% above average

The benefits of travel for kids extend well beyond character building. Cognitive research demonstrates that exposure to novel environments stimulates brain development in ways that familiar settings cannot. When children navigate new places, encounter unfamiliar languages, and adapt to different cultural norms, their brains form new neural pathways. A survey conducted by the Student & Youth Travel Association found that 76% of teachers reported increased cultural awareness in students after travel experiences. More striking still, a comprehensive study by the Travel Effect Project revealed that adults who traveled regularly as children achieved above-average grades, higher educational attainment, and incomes 12% above average compared to their less-traveled peers.

I witnessed this directly when I fell ill during a trip to Italy last month, and my children, now teenagers, had to navigate a day trip to Florence entirely on their own. They missed their first train because they had never navigated the European rail system before. They had to purchase new tickets with limited language skills. Hours of delays followed. But they made it. When they returned that evening, exhausted and proud, they had gained something no classroom could have provided: the lived experience of their own accomplishment.

When my daughter was bitten by a tick while hiking in Austria, we faced the challenge of navigating European medical systems as outsiders. It was stressful in the moment. In retrospect, it was education in the deepest sense: an understanding that healthcare works differently in different places, that asking for help in an unfamiliar context requires courage, and that problems can be solved even when the rulebook is written in another language.

While stress-free family vacations are more enjoyable in the moment, having to pivot, adapt and overcome challenges actually cultivates new skills: not despite the stress but because of how families learn to manage it together.

The Nostalgia That Objects Cannot Evoke

There is a reason we do not gather around the coffee table to reminisce about the television we bought in 2015. Material possessions, no matter how beautiful or thoughtfully chosen, lack the narrative arc that memories require. They do not have a beginning, middle, and end. They do not feature characters, conflict, or resolution. They simply exist until they are replaced.

Travel, by contrast, is story. And the research on memory formation explains why these stories endure. Novel experiences are encoded more deeply because they require more cognitive processing. The brain pays closer attention when the environment is unfamiliar. This is why adults can recall details from childhood trips with startling clarity while forgetting entire years of routine. Memories shaped by strong feelings often become permanently etched in our minds. v

My children remember the taste of street food in Mexico. They remember the sound of waves against the dinghy in Turkey. They remember the expression on the Portuguese man’s face when we broke his flower pot and the relief when he smiled. These memories are not static. They evolve with each retelling, becoming richer and more meaningful as my children grow old enough to understand what they were actually learning in those moments.

A Different Kind of Investment

Children who travel learn this lesson viscerally. They learn that frustration is temporary, that problems have solutions, and that the discomfort of unfamiliarity is the price of growth.

The gift of travel is, in a meaningful sense, an investment. But unlike financial investments, the returns are not measured in currency. They are measured in perspective, in adaptability, in the capacity to feel at home in unfamiliar places. Research consistently shows that children exposed to diverse cultures develop greater empathy, stronger social competence, and more flexible thinking patterns.

For parents and grandparents considering how to invest in the young people they love, the evidence points clearly toward experiences. International family vacations are not luxuries reserved for a privileged few. They are formative experiences that shape how children understand themselves and their place in a complex world.

This is why we run marathons, sign up for difficult courses, and train for challenges that will test us. The accomplishment means more when it was hard.

Children who travel learn this lesson viscerally. They learn that frustration is temporary, that problems have solutions, and that the discomfort of unfamiliarity is the price of growth.

Planning Your Next Chapter

For families ready to embrace the gift of travel, the first step is simply to begin. Choose a destination that will stretch your family slightly beyond the familiar. Involve your children in the planning process, which itself activates those anticipatory dopamine pathways. Accept that things will go wrong and recognize that those moments may become the trip’s most valuable gifts.

Consider destinations that offer both adventure and education, places where history comes alive and where daily routines will be meaningfully disrupted. The top destinations for family travel are not necessarily the most exotic. They are the places that will challenge your family to grow together.

The Role of Expert Guidance

Navigating international travel with children requires thoughtfulness, and this is where working with a luxury travel advisor becomes invaluable. At Boutique Travel Advisors, we understand that family travel is about more than logistics. It is about creating conditions for transformation. We handle the complexity so you can focus on what matters: being present with your children as they discover the world.

The greatest gift we can give our children is not something that can be wrapped. It is the confidence that comes from solving problems, the empathy that grows from encountering differences, and the memories that will warm them for a lifetime. That gift is travel. And unlike any object, it only becomes more valuable with time.

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