No matter how much you’ve traveled, seeing fantastic travel photos or videos always has the potential to trigger travel envy. The visuals may even be posted by people you don’t know very well, or not at all - friends of friends, travel bloggers, or others with the seemingly perfect photo or video.  Even an advertisement featuring someone in a rooftop pool can be enough to trigger travel envy.  What can you do about it?

Realize that travel is not a competition. Travel envy can lead to toxic competition for travel experiences and traveling somewhere just because other people have gone there, even if it’s not really a place you would travel to otherwise.  You must choose where and how you would like to travel above all else.  Everyone has their own idea of the perfect vacation.  For some, it is being by the water.  For others, it is being in the mountains (perhaps also by the water near a lake or river).  For still others, it is camping in the desert, or a cruise, or an open-jaw bikepacking tour through multiple towns or countries.   For still others, it is a family vacation staying with family members in their houses.  Some enjoy historic sites, museums, and lively urban centers, and others enjoy remote areas well beyond the reach of light pollution.  None of these perfect vacation definitions are incorrect or mutually exclusive - you might enjoy one type of trip as much as another depending on the season, your travelmates, or other factors.   Other people’s travels do not define what you should do.

Understand that photos capture a single moment in time, not an entire experience. Travel photos often emphasize food, alcohol, stunning vistas, or the photographer’s astounding athletic achievements, complete with screenshots from fitness apps.  Your friends, family, and travel bloggers/vloggers tend not to share photos or videos of crowded public transport stations, traffic, arguments about directions, language barrier-related misunderstandings, local poverty, or price tags.    Understand that the photos these people post capture one point in time, and that they may be carefully selected, run through filters, or otherwise edited.  

Their photos aren’t your trip or your life.   The idea behind social media is other people trying to make their lives your life, by encouraging you to spend time looking at their postings (and in effect generating more ad revenue for Silicon Valley tech bros).  Sociologist Arlie Hochschild, author of The Time Bind, described how we don’t have time to pay homage to everyone else’s 15 minutes of fame - and this was a good decade before social media became a thing.

Sometimes you need travel inspiration, inspo, or whatever the hot word is these days.  It is OK to look at and post travel photos, but be careful not to fall into envy over them.  Create your own travel experiences above all else.  

How do you manage travel envy?  Tell us in the comments, and if you haven't done so already, click below to register for the Top 11 Travel Health and Safety Myths.  ZING!