Wanderlust is a strong desire to wander or travel and explore the world. Most of us experience the wish to visit faraway places once in a while, especially recently with lots of overseas trips being cancelled and replaced with staycations!
Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was uncontrollable urge to walk or wander. Dromomania has also been referred to as traveling fugue. Non-clinically, the term has come to be used to describe a desire for frequent traveling or wanderlust.
The meaning is “a strong desire to travel.” Used in this way it is not a bad word. What may cause some to think it's a bad word is “lust at the end. By itself “lust can mean a strong desire for someone's wife, which is wrong. However, “wanderlust is not bad.
4. Fernweh (n.) Definition: This German word,means an ache to get away and travel to a distant place, a feeling even stronger than wanderlust. If wanderlust wasn't poetic enough for you, allow me to present fernweh, a German word that literally translates to “distance-sickness.”
The definition for wanderlust is a simple one: A strong desire to travel. But the word encompasses so much more; when we travel we are victims of the unknown, we are students of a foreign world. We think about traveling before we fall asleep, as we make our daily commute, or when scanning a morning magazine.
According to some experts, this adventurous spirit, or wanderlust syndrome, isn't just some trend.They say it's actually in our genes. They've even pinned down a specific one: DRD4-7r, a receptor for dopamine (the pleasure hormone) that they're calling “the travel gene.”