Stressed or Anxious about Travelling?
Relax, that’s Pretty Common

Travel can be stressful!

That’s the experience of a significant majority of travellers worldwide.

In a 2026 survey of women solo travellers, around 70% reported having some form of anxiety about travel.

Because of bouts of stress and anxiety, some travellers find it necessary to modify their plans, while others give up entirely on their intended dreams and adventures.

As an aside, perhaps travel stress and anxiety explains some of the weird behaviours that we hear of from tourists and travellers?

If you are amongst those who have experienced some form of stress or anxiety, either before you travel, or/and during your travels, or if you’ve given up on travel because it’s too stressful, you are not alone.

In fact, it seems that travellers who do not experience stress or anxiety are actually in the minority:

So, are there steps we can take to prevent stress and anxiety from spoiling our travel dreams and adventures?

The short answer is “YES”, travel stress and anxiety can be overcome.

A Quick Outline

In this Post, we shall explore:

Travel is BIG business

In spite of the apparent prevalence of travel stress and anxiety, travel remains BIG business world-wide, accounting for around 9.9% of total global GDP.

It seems that up to almost half of the global population may travel during a typical year.

Estimates suggest between 2 and 4 billion people worldwide take at least one domestic trip (overnight or longer) over a year. In addition, there are between 250 to 350 million individual international travellers worldwide per year.

And on any given day, around the world:

My Moments of Travel Stress

Over the years I have experienced several moments of travel stress, usually while on my journey and far away from my home base. One I well remember is:

I was taking my Mum to the Baltic, flying from Melbourne to Stockholm, with stopovers in Singapore and Zurich.

Our SQ flight from Melbourne departed and arrived on schedule. As our bags were already checked through to Stockholm, at Changi Airport we had ample time to visit the famous Butterfly Gardens.

When we emerged, we found that our leg to Zurich, with SWISS, was delayed by around 2½ hours. That meant we should only have a short wait in Zurich before our final leg to Stockholm departed.

We eventually we departed Singapore almost 2¾ hours late, but I wasn’t too concerned because we were continuing on to Stockholm with SWISS. My expectation was that we would complete our immigration formalities in Stockholm, and would merely transit Zurich “airside”.

On arrival, I found that I was WRONG! Schengen Zone entry was required, even to transit Zurich airport.

We joined the queue, and waited our turn. I “watch-watched” anxiously, as the minutes ticked by until our final check-in for Stockholm. In a strange airport, and feeling a bit jet-lagged, I was starting to stress – but I couldn’t let Mum see this.

After an eternity, our immigration was completed, and we went in search of our SWISS Check-in. We now had less than 5 minutes remaining, and my stress levels were rocketing up the scale.

I said to my nearly eighty-year-old Mum “we need to run!” Suddenly, she was off – running as if she was back in her school-girl days, at an athletics carnival. I struggled to keep up, but with adrenaline now surging through my system, I wasn’t going to stop.

Mum spotted our SWISS Check-in, and led me in. Two other passengers were ahead of us in the queue – and we had perhaps a minute left. One of the SWISS Customer Service team glanced our way, and gave us a smile.

We had made it! Hallelujah!

Perhaps, because we were booked through to Stockholm on SWISS, we would have been given some grace if we had been late?

But, being so far from home, I was not going to risk it, even though the problem had been caused by our delayed departure from Singapore with SWISS.

By the time we boarded our flight to Stockholm, I was almost back to normal.

As for my Mum, after we buckled up for take-off, she said something like “That was exciting! Is it always like that?” (That’s my Mum, not phased at all!)

Unpacking Travel Stress and Travel Anxiety

To be clear, Stress  is generally a short-term reaction, triggered by an identifiable external  challenge or threat; the stress usually passes when the situation changes.

On the other hand, Anxiety  is an excessive and ongoing internal  worry or fear that can even occur without an obvious trigger, and can become persistent.

Chronic  (continuous) stress, that continues for a long period of time and doesn’t go away, can lead to a form of persistent anxiety.

Both stress and anxiety are completely normal human emotions , rooted in our ancient “fight-flight-freeze” survival instincts.

In the case of stress, our brain will release the hormones adrenaline and cortisol, to prepare our body for immediate action (fight or flight). As the external threat passes, this release stops.

Anxiety triggers the release of cortisol, which increases alertness and energy levels. However, persistent anxiety will cause the release of cortisol to continue, which can have both physical and psychological consequences.

Travel stress may be triggered by external events or incidents such as: planning overload (‘overwhelm’); budget shortfall; unexpected traffic; crowded public transport; long airport queues; cancelled, delayed or missed flights; lost baggage; navigating foreign transit; packed schedules; physical fatigue; disrupted sleep; jet lag.

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Travel anxiety can be triggered by internal worries and fears such as: fear of flying; fear of the unknown; health and safety concerns; budget concerns; pressures to join a group; negative past experiences; plus worry about various unpredictable situations that can arise from being away from home, including changes to daily routine and loss of control.

Unpredictability Can Lead to Stress and/or Anxiety

Travel can be an exciting adventure, but it can also bring a certain amount of unpredictability, resulting in interesting (and sometimes unexpected) challenges, including situations beyond our control.

Along with this, travel also causes an immediate disconnect with our usual daily routine.

Because our brain has evolved to find safety in predictability and structure, this is one reason why most people can expect to feel at least some extent of stress and/or anxiety when travelling.

Most travel can be broken into four (or five) stages:

As we cycle through the array of activities in each of these stages, we may encounter unexpected or unpredictable situations (challenges, threats) which cause us some form of stress, or lead to anxiety.

These might even begin during planning and preparation, with information overload and decision fatigue (i.e. “overwhelm”).

Along the way we might encounter things outside of our control, such as changed or cancelled bookings, flight delays, missed connections, lost baggage, and even illness.

One of my techniques for countering travel stress and travel anxiety is to remind myself that I am not like the first person to walk on the moon. The paths that I am treading (or will be treading) have been walked (literally) by untold thousands before me. Any challenge or threat that I might face has already been overcome by many of those who have gone before me.
I am not alone !

Countering Travel Stress and Anxiety

The secret to countering travel stress and travel anxiety lies in mental fitness.

For athletes, especially elite athletes, where physical capabilities are often almost equal, mental fitness (also known as ‘mental skills’) is the key to success.

Mental fitness helps athletes compartmentalise mistakes and avoid negative performance spirals; navigate any physical and/or psychological toll of setbacks; and adopt a “success mindset” during high-stakes moments by blocking out distractions.

As one of my Army Physical Training Instructors would often say when coaching sports teams to be focussed on their game: “Ladies, you are only ever going to be as good as the muscle between your ears – all this physical stuff is useless if we don’t also train your brain!”

The same applies for travellers. Our physical fitness gives us the endurance and strength that allows our body to perform tasks with ease, without becoming tired.

And our mental fitness gives us the skills and habits that determine our resilience, i.e. how well we handle stress, bounce back from setbacks, regulate our emotions, and adapt to change.

Developing Our Mental Fitness and Travel Resilience

Our Mental fitness is developed through repeated practice (not unlike physical strength training), and it is a predictor to how we’ll respond to future challenges, rather than just describing how we might feel today.

Preparing our mental fitness for travel is about being proactive, meaning that we take action to maintain and improve our mental wellbeing, training our mind to stay strong, adaptable, and sharp. While actual mental training methods may need to be individually tailored (similar to an elite athlete), they are likely to include:

Our resilience describes how capable we are of handling the emotions of wherever we end up. Instead of panicking when things go wrong, the resilient traveller is able to stay calm, adapt, recover, and bounce back from any unexpected travel disruptions.

Each time we face a challenging encounter, we learn something. When we recover and bounce back, our self-confidence grows, which reinforces our resilience. Self-confidence and resilience fuel each other in a continuous loop.

The opposite of self-confidence is self-doubt. Action, even in the form of small steps, is the best antidote. Viewing obstacles or setbacks as stepping stones to learn and adapt encourages a “growth mindset”. Above all, treating any failures as learning opportunities strengthens self-confidence.

Mental Health Terminology

For clarity, it is worth noting the following terminology related to mental health:

Mental Fitness:
Acquiring the skills and habits needed to build your inner strength, resilience, and adaptability to handle challenges

Mental Wellness:
Your active pursuit of a healthy, balanced mind, bringing you a sense of peace, happiness, and equilibrium

Mental Wellbeing:
A snapshot of your current quality of life – which is shaped by the fit between your brain and your environment

Mental Health
Your current psychological, emotional, and social state of being, covering how you think, feel, and act

At times, these four terms may be used as if they’re interchangeable; while they are related, each is distinctly different.

Stress and Anxiety are NOT a Sign of Weakness

As noted above, both stress and anxiety come the “fight-flight-freeze” survival instincts of our caveman ancestors, and even in the 21st Century are completely normal human emotions. They are NOT a sign of weakness, or of a mental health deficiency.

Each of us, when faced with a threat or a challenge, are likely to react slightly differently. This is because different brains may be “wired” differently – this may be because of our genetics, our life experiences, our age, our health, our wellbeing, or our environment (or, a combination of two or more).

In any given moment, whether travelling or not, when a threat or a challenge is perceived, our brain will send a surge of adrenaline into our bloodstream (which is why some people seek out thrilling, intense, or dangerous activities to trigger an adrenaline rush).

Because of this, the first time we encounter something that is unexpected or unpredictable, it can have a big impact. However, repeat occurrences of similar experiences are likely to have a lesser impact, perhaps even eventually becoming nothing to worry about (“no worries!”).

While our immediate instinctive response, which overrides any rational thoughts, is triggered automatically by our brain, our mental fitness can give us the resilience to manage our reaction, keeping it in balance with the threat or challenge. Our resilience also enables our recovery, so we move forward, rather than spiralling into a deep hole.

Identifying Triggers From Past Experiences

By reflecting on past experiences, we can identify and even understand what may induce stress or anxiety. This naming a specific worry or concern is called ‘trigger-mapping’. It will contribute to our mental fitness preparation and help to build our resilience.

Trigger-mapping involves:

Keeping a trigger-mapping record allows us to review successful coping strategies and to modify those that were less successful. It also provides a chart of our overall progress.

The Travel Resilience Solution

Want to go deeper into this subject, to develop your mental fitness and travel resilience?

My Travel Resilience Solution is a personalized 90-minute 1-to-1 coaching session, conducted using Zoom, where we create a custom mental skills and resilience program, just for YOU!

To know more, follow this link:

The Travel Resilience Solution

Your Take-outs

The secret to countering travel stress and travel anxiety lies in mental fitness.