Is vacation anxiety a thing?

While travel anxiety isn't an official diagnosis, it is a common cause of anxiety. Anytime you have to or want to travel, it can seriously impact your well-being. Even though travel anxiety can feel overwhelming, there are strategies that can help you overcome it.



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People with travel anxiety may experience unease, a rapid heart rate, or sweating while traveling. They may feel anxious while taking certain forms of transportation, being in an unfamiliar place, or experiencing the unknown.

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Is it normal to have anxiety about going on vacation? Though travel anxiety isn't a medical diagnosis, it's something many people experience. Travel anxiety can be triggered by specific fears — flight phobia, fear of repeating a bad experience — or a general fear of the unknown.

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The key symptoms of travel phobia are excessive fear and avoidance of travel situations. These symptoms overlap with those of PTSD. In particular, persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and fear and other negative emotions in response to trauma reminders are common PTSD symptoms.

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Hodophobia is the medical term for an extreme fear of traveling. Some people call it “trip-a-phobia.” It's often a heightened fear of a particular mode of transportation, such as airplanes.

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This phenomenon is usually due to a number of factors such as financial burden, and the potential for a vacation to become stressful. Additionally, others may simply not be interested in a particular destination and therefore have little motivation to go on vacation.

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How common is travel anxiety? Travel anxiety is common, especially for those who already experience other forms of anxiety. Those who have a family history of anxiety, take certain medications, or who have certain physical health conditions may also have a higher chance of having travel anxiety.

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People may experience travel anxiety because of the unknown. For example, they may wonder what would happen if they ran out of money, got lost, or became ill. Having a plan in place for worst-case scenarios may help ease these fears.

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The University of Pittsburgh's Mind-Body Center found that taking vacation increases positive emotions and reduces depression. And spending time in nature has been shown to reduce negative rumination and improves overall psychological wellbeing.

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Tourists on religious or historical trips can also suddenly exhibit symptoms of psychosis. In this case, travellers become 'intoxicated' and overwhelmed by their surroundings. This can cause travellers to become detached from reality and can lead to delusional thoughts and behaviours.

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Travel anxiety is the fear of visiting an unfamiliar place. It can also involve the stress that comes with planning your travels. Even if you have no history of anxiety, the idea of being outside familiar territory can throw you into panic mode.

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Other things that can help include:
  1. Planning an activity you can look forward to.
  2. Getting back to your normal sleep schedule as quickly as possible.
  3. Tidying up and getting organized before you leave if clutter is stressful to you, so you come back to work after vacation without messes to clean up.


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