It’s a vast but interesting topic, to which each one of us could correlate and understand what makes one such type of a traveler. Psychologically speaking, based on the psychology travelers can be divided into three types as follows-:
Let’s first discuss them one by one:
1) Psychocentric traveler:
They are more into finding places that are comfortable like home. They choose destinations they can travel by car. It all have well-organized schedules, expect the foreigners to speak in their home languages, are rigid, self-inhibiting, do not want to explore or adventure, and are nervous too. Those who are into buying souvenirs and prefer less developed spots to crowded places.
2) Allocentric traveler:
In contrast to psychocentric, allocentric are outgoing, curious and risk taking people. They like taking and exploring exotic adventures and uncharted scheduled places. The rest of like spending time searching for history, they like meeting foreigners and learn their cultures. They would prefer to have basic facilities like hotel room and transportation, but not a basic itinerary. They are more confident and outgoing in behavior and make their own program even to destinations not known to them earlier.
3) Mid-centric:
As the name suggests, they are a combination of both psychocentric and allocentric. They do attempt new things and, they dislike things being composed or arranged and they don’t come back to the same objective. They prefer trips close to home.
After going through the traits of different travelers, now you all can correlate with what type of traveler you basically are and why are you so? Why – again raises and answers so many questions depending on the factors, situations, and circumstances played in your life, besides your family members, their psychology, the way they brought you up and took you around places, what kind of experiences you had in life since as a child and so on.
Traveler’s Dilemma
Finally, now what kind of traveler you are and you prefer to become; be it solo, in small groups, in large groups, long distance, short distance, preferring technical, scientific, religious leisure, educational, shopping or a particular weather trips. You can, once again correlate to any of those mentioned in above list.
Travelling also affects our routine life. One needs to plan how their home or office would in their absence, arranging for the backups for these many days, how committed or available, that person is going to be, his dedication level will also keep one satisfied or relaxed during travelling. Also, how the duration of their own absence is going to affect others in the family including pets. Travelers also keep certain budget in their individual minds based on which they would plan their travel.
Now let’s discuss some other categories of travelers based on their personality. They are:
1) Bubble travelers
They travel out of curiosity. Neither do they have much money nor knowledge. They prefer packaged tours and like to observe different cultures.
2) Idealized experience seekers
They are confident tourists with experience of foreign tours. They are flexible and prefer to take offers provided to them.
3) Seasoned travelers
Those who are more affluent than the idealized experience seekers. They are more confident to explore places and experience different places and environments. They are more adventurous and prefer individual tours.
4) Complete immerses
These travelers completely get immersed in the foreign culture, heritage, culinary experience and language.
As mentioned earlier, travelling does involve lots of planning and affects our day to day life, surroundings and people dependent on us. Sometimes, if we’re planning long travels, including more than a year or so, we should learn and practice letting go of our possessions. Another important factor involved is money. Start raising and saving or borrowing money to ease your travel. Deadline, is a very important factor to be reminded to us by our minds. Otherwise, as the comfort level is reached while travelling a particular area, mentally we relax and procrastination sets in and we want to stay back for some more days.
So, if we abide by the dates in particular and follow them sincerely, we would be able to fulfil our target and enjoy travelling. Depending upon the requirements, one should carry sufficient clothing and other essential items. Travel light is the mantra for traveling. So if you’re in a habit of changing lots of dresses from morning till evening, accessorizing them with matching stuff, then give it a second thought before traveling please.
The Transformative Power of Travel
Travelling takes us around different places, meeting new people, so it’s advised to be open to new cultures. Keep yourself in the position of people of that particular region and now think! Will you not be happier welcoming someone who’s ready to adjust to your culture than welcoming a person who’s more into himself and rigid to changes? So while you set out to travel be open and ready for circumstances involving risk.
Keeping all these in mind and also understanding the psychology of oneself, “big five” personality dimensions have to be taken into consideration. These include- extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Research showed that participants who chose to study abroad were generally higher in extraversion than those who did not.
Those who went on a full-year trip were generally higher to openness to experience than those who did not travel. After returning from their trip, those who traveled tended to show an increase in openness to experience, agreeableness (a need to get along with other people), and emotional stability relative to those who did not travel. So it’s understood that the people who traveled maintained a bigger social network and were found to be more adjusting than those who did not. Extended foreign trips bring people out of their comfort zones, which moves them to openness, making them less emotionally reactive to day to day to day changes. The experience of meeting new people also helps with agreeableness.
Besides above, tourists can also be based on their personality types. What all you expect from a particular package, how are the travelling companies going to meet your standards are some of the basic questions, according to a leading global travel agency,
let’s discuss them under different headings:
1) Bang for the buck traveler-
They are the people who wouldn’t miss a single place covered under travelling in that area. They are always ready to move around and explore that place and are not tired of visiting a site of no use to them.
2) The resort hopper-
A vacation means chilling out in a plush resort or hotel enjoying for hours together in the resort pool itself. They are not too excited about sightseeing.
3) City slicker
They are the ones who enjoy the noisy traffic of the cities while travelling. They are not the ones who’d go to quiet place or high mountains.
4) The soul searcher-
They are opposite to city slickers. Those who prefer quiet places where they can sit for hours together and rediscover themselves. They seem to be happy without any.
5) The typical tourist-
As the name suggests, they are the ones who can be easily spotted from a distance. They are seen moving around either with a tourist guide or with a city map in their hands. They would not want to miss a single place from the city’s list of ‘worth visiting places’.
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