Audiobook9 hours
The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations
Written by Jaime Kurtz
Narrated by Carla Mercer-Meyer
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
In The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations, psychology professor Dr. Jaime Kurtz applies the large and ever-growing body of research on happiness and decision-making to enhance the experience of travel. An avid explorer, study abroad instructor, teacher, and happiness researcher, Dr. Kurtz shows how anyone who has a vacation in his or her future can create the most meaningful, fulfilling, and joyful experiences possible.
When the price of travel is daunting, getting the most "bang for your buck," both financially and emotionally, is essential to an ideal travel experience. With a sense of humor and adventure, Dr. Kurtz provides guidance on how to craft your perfect trip, boost your excitement before your trip even begins, and actively immerse yourself in a new culture while unplugging from your technological ties to home. She also explains how to best cherish and share travel moments, how to ease back into your daily life upon returning, and how to carry the secrets of happy travel into every day.
When the price of travel is daunting, getting the most "bang for your buck," both financially and emotionally, is essential to an ideal travel experience. With a sense of humor and adventure, Dr. Kurtz provides guidance on how to craft your perfect trip, boost your excitement before your trip even begins, and actively immerse yourself in a new culture while unplugging from your technological ties to home. She also explains how to best cherish and share travel moments, how to ease back into your daily life upon returning, and how to carry the secrets of happy travel into every day.
Related to The Happy Traveler
Related audiobooks
Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler's Journey Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dream, Plan, and Go: A Travel Guide to Inspire Your Independent Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wide-Open World: How Volunteering Around the Globe Changed One Family's Lives Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Headhunters on My Doorstep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Van of One's Own: A Winter Sojourn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Around the World in 60 Seconds: The Nas Daily Journey—1,000 Days. 64 Countries. 1 Beautiful Planet. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Biking Across America: My Coast-to-Coast Adventure and the People I Met Along the Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kenya - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTravel Tales: Women Alone — The #MeToo of Travel!: How to Survive as a Solo Woman Traveler Overseas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How To Travel on a Budget Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deep in the Wave: A Surfing Guide to the Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Backpack Europe on a Budget Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhilippines - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5More Ketchup than Salsa: Voted ‘Best Travel Narrative’ by the British Guild of Travel Writers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness That Helps the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ecuador - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Female World Traveler 101: How to Travel the World, Learn New Cultures, and Explore the World as a Solo Woman Traveler From A to Z! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMini Maui Travel Guide: 7 Quick Steps to Experience the Island of Maui in Hawaii to the Fullest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Take Off Your Shoes: One Man's Journey from the Boardroom to Bali and Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Psychology For You
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: An Indispensible Primer on the Ultimate Form of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Win Friends And Influence People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Win Friends and Influence People: Updated For the Next Generation of Leaders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You’re Not the Only One F*cking Up: Breaking the Endless Cycle of Dating Mistakes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed For You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spritual Growth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Banish Your Inner Critic: Silence the Voice of Self-Doubt to Unleash Your Creativity and Do Your Best Work Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It Starts with Self-Compassion: A Practical Road Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Garden Within: Where the War with Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Happy Traveler
Rating: 3.676470588235294 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
17 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What do colonoscopies have to do with enjoying your dream vacation? Read "The Happy Traveler" by Jaime Kurtz and you'll find out. Kurtz, a psychology professor who studies happiness and personality, manages to weave a great deal of research into her advice about how to make the most of your travel experiences, and in so doing offers up suggestions that actually apply to many areas of life. Though I feared that this book might cater too much to the privileged few who pack up for an international trip once a year or more (the author being one of them), readers for whom travel is a rare experience should not be dissuaded, as her ideas will help you to ensure that your once-in-a-lifetime experience can be everything you want it to be. This is not a book about where to find hidden gems or when to purchase tickets to snag the best deal; it is a book about mindfulness, positivity, and maximising what researchers know about what will truly make us happy so that you can anticipate the stresses and difficulties that can come with planning and taking a trip and focus more on the things you really want to be paying attention to.I listened to this on audiobook; I generally hate audiobooks, but I was almost riveted to this one. The reader did an excellent job. The only downside to the audiobook was that some chapters of the book contain personality surveys, which are hard to devote sufficient thought to when the questions are being read aloud to you rather than you being able to have the time to read, digest, and answer.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Travel has become the great American past time. Everyone loves to travel, visit exotic destinations, eat strange foods and check those destinations off their bucket list. So although they should be easy and enjoyable, travel can be stressful. The Happy Traveler is a book about preparing for your next vacation, but instead of dealing with all the practical matters of planning for a trip like packing or buying tickets, Kurtz deals with the psychological element of travel. What are your expectations? Who are your travel companions? How to figure out what is YOUR ideal vacation. Whether you're a globetrotter or an armchair traveler, you'll enjoy reading this book. Lots of insights on human nature -- I'll definitely be thinking about this for my next vacation.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was not a fit for me. I was disappointed that it felt more like a loose dissertation than a readable book, and that the over-written text was matched by the slow, over-enunciated reading of it (with no ability to alter the play speed). And, contrary to its being highlighted as “iPod Ready,” I was frustrated that I couldn't upload it directly into iTunes. Rather, it took lots of googling and a couple of hours (!) to get the CD files loaded onto my PC, transferred to iTunes and then synced to my device. :(
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jaime Kurtz gives the reader (in this case listener for the audio book) a very insightful guide to travel- and life. This audio-book was both entertaining and informative as Kurtz uses her first hand experiences, peer-review literature citations, and amusing anecdotes to equip the seasoned and novice traveler alike with the tools for maximizing the happiness of traveling. Her scope ranges from international travel of all genres to local travel and even the "stay-cation". She provides simple distillations in the form of lists of do's and don'ts, entertaining the reader with travelers tales of the good, the bad and the ugly sides of travel. As I was on a short road trip while I listened to this charming book, I was able to apply many of Kurtzes guidelines immediately both during and after the trip. Yes the advice was sound and the trip went far more smoothly than I had anticipated. Finally she advises us to use the numerous insights for our daily life, learning to garner fuller and more meaningful experiences in our mundane daily routines. For travelers - a must have book. For the rest of you - remember that no matter where you live - you are at a travel destination.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If you were moved by books like Eat, Pray, Love; Under the Tuscan Sun or Wild, or their movie adaptation counterparts, then this book is probably for you. If you not only enjoyed the above, but were then motivated to take the next step and craft your own meaningful vacation experiences, then this book is definitely for you.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For those of us that love to travel, new tips and recommendations are always welcome. The author is clearly an avid traveler and also knowledgeable in the field of psychology and happiness. This book is the results of her exploration of where all those subjects meet. There are some great tips, like learning what your perfect vacation is through a breakdown of your personality. Don't feel like you have to go on a cruise or a hiking trip because someone else loved it. Much of the advice seemed like common sense to me, but I travel a lot and feel like I've established what works for me better than the average reader. Some of the tips will definitely stick with me. I particularly liked the recommendation to "go out with a bang" by saving one big experience or treat for the end of your vacation. You remember your trip (or even regular moments in your life) based heavily on what happens at the very end. If you're going to splurge on a nice hotel, do it for the last part of the trip. If you're going to hit up a nice restaurant for dinner, don't do it every night, save it for a final night and eat at cafes and bakeries to get a better feel for the area during other days.She also recommends not buying generic souvenirs just because they feel like a "once in a lifetime" purchase in the moment. Instead, pick items that aren't mass produced and connect you to a specific moment on your trip. I loved that she used her own experiences to illustrate her points. Hiring a local to help her navigate through Vietnam helped her connect with the real country instead of the tourist version. Going into a vacation with reasonable expectations (not every minute is going to be "Instagram worthy") helps travelers enjoy things more, even when things go wrong. BOTTOM LINE: Good tips for experienced travelers or novices. If you enjoy travel and reading about it, this one should offer at least a few helpful points.