Why are disastrous trips so great?

The journey through disaster offered an unforgettable experience.

The term "disaster" encompasses many things. A journey can go downhill just a little: missing a flight or attending a parade on a rainy day, and it's all labeled a "disaster." There are also voyages so terribly bad and misplanned that they become famous. The horror of the 1910 Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica was vividly recounted by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in his memoir "The Worst Journey in the World," transforming a failure into a classic of adventure literature.

A disastrous journey is certainly terrible, but everyone's definition of "terrible" is different. For American novelist and journalist Martha Gellhorn, nothing is worse than a boring trip, and nothing is more boring than a cruise. "Just thinking about such a trip makes me feel disgusted," she said. In 1944, she was on a Norwegian explosives ship crossing the Atlantic. The hold was full of flammable materials, the food was appalling, drinks were a luxury, and the crew didn't know how to smile. There wasn't even a lifeboat. When the ship safely reached Liverpool, Martha felt relieved, but at the same time, she had a strange sense of regret. She really liked that terrible trip. "If I had to choose between a cruise and an explosives ship, it's obvious which I would choose."

There are also those who are stubbornly optimistic, like Jan Morris, the British travel writer. Jan Morris claims that no difficulty or obstacle can spoil her mood. To prove this, she cites an example experience. What if all the bad luck that had befallen her throughout her life came crashing down on a single trip? What if “both my passport and plane ticket were stolen, my luggage was lost on the flight, I suffered from severe diarrhea and dehydration in the middle of a hot summer, and the place I arrived at had no electricity or telephone service due to political turmoil”?

"What a terrible journey, isn't it?" Jan said. "No," she continued, "Why? Because if it had, I'd tell myself, 'How lucky it wasn't raining.'" For Jan Morris, a bad journey was just an exception, a bumpy, uneven road that made her appreciate the smooth, flat stretches even more.

These perilous journeys test the strength and cohesion of relationships (whether old or new) more than anything else. This also explains why "The Worst Journey in the World" is so captivating and uplifting for readers. The story details the journey of a zoologist and explorers in search of emperor penguin eggs. The expedition is an unimaginable ordeal: meager rations, extreme cold (temperatures dropping to -77°C), and constant darkness. But these people never lose hope and maintain a warm friendship.

But it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad event for a trip to go wrong. For travelers, a journey that lasts so long that everyone is exhausted is enough to be considered the "worst experience in the world."

For decades, social scientists have been exploring and exploring human psychology, hoping to uncover the secrets of happiness and the places that lead to it. And one consistent finding has been this: Humans are not good at predicting what will make them happy and what will not.

We often think that the more we accumulate, the better. However, studies have shown that experiences, not material possessions, bring the greatest satisfaction. Similarly, travelers often think that a smooth trip from start to finish is the happiest. But real-world experience shows that encountering a little hardship makes the journey even more memorable.

Perhaps the real reason we travel is to stretch ourselves, challenge ourselves, and discover untapped potential. Bad experiences build the hero's journey, as has been the case in adventure stories throughout history.

The essence of tourism lies in the memories that remain.

Smooth journeys come and go. Bad journeys stay forever. Nothing is more dull than a trip that goes according to plan. Choosing between two trips—one disastrous and one wonderful—says a lot about human nature, how we remember information, and why we travel in the first place.

We often think of memories as digital images or records that we can recall at will. In reality, memory is far more flexible and complex; it's not something that can be retrieved, but rather something that is formed and built upon. In other words, memory is like a building of perception; it can bend and change over time.

And memory isn't simply about perception. Our emotions play a big role in how we recall events, and in what level of detail. Intense emotions make memories clearer. The same is true when we recount our journeys. The fish you caught seems to grow a little bigger each time you tell the story. And these "modified" versions lead to modified memories. You're not just excitedly recounting that the fish "was the size of a car," you actually believe it. You remember it that way.

Research also shows that negative events make a stronger impression than positive ones. This is called the "negative bias." However, this negative bias is balanced by another psychological phenomenon called the "fading effect bias." Simply put, as time goes on, we forget the bad things and remember the good things. Our minds erase negative memories and retain positive ones. This tendency becomes even more pronounced as we get older.

All these studies point to one truth: the nature of travel is not just a physical and cognitive activity, but also a creative one. A well-planned itinerary is not as important as a rich imagination, because the trip itself is not memorable. It is how you remember it that makes the journey unforgettable.

In other words, your journey, for better or worse, doesn't end when you return home. In a very real sense, it has only just begun.

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