Scientists say travel could slow aging and boost your health
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Scientists say travel could slow aging and boost your health
Date:
May 4, 2026
Source:
Edith Cowan University
Summary:
A new study suggests travel could be a surprisingly powerful anti-aging tool. By viewing tourism through the lens of entropy, researchers found that positive travel experiences may help the body stay balanced and resilient. Activities like exploring new places, staying active, and connecting with others can boost immunity, metabolism, and stress recovery. However, stressful or unsafe travel could reverse these benefits.
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Your next vacation might do more than recharge you—it could help slow the aging process. Credit: Shutterstock
Retinol creams may get most of the attention in the fight against visible aging, but researchers at Edith Cowan University (ECU) have pointed to a much bigger and more adventurous possibility: travel.
In a 2024 interdisciplinary study published in the Journal of Travel Research, ECU researchers applied the theory of entropy to tourism, proposing that positive travel experiences may support physical and mental health in ways that could help slow some signs of aging. The work does not suggest that travel can stop aging, but it frames tourism as more than a break from routine. It may be a way to help the body maintain balance, resilience, and repair.
How Travel Could Influence Aging
Entropy is often described as the universe's movement toward disorder. In the context of health, the researchers suggest that experiences can either support or disrupt the body's ability to stay organized and functioning well. Positive travel experiences may help reduce that drift toward disorder, while stressful or unsafe travel may push the body in the opposite direction.
"Aging, as a process, is irreversible. While it can't be stopped, it can be slowed down," ECU PhD candidate Ms. Fangli Hu said.
According to Ms. Hu, travel may improve well being by placing people in new environments, encouraging movement, increasing social interaction, and creating positive emotions. Those same ideas already appear in areas such as wellness tourism, health tourism, and yoga tourism.
"Tourism isn't just about leisure and recreation. It could also contribute to people's physical and mental health," Ms. Hu added.
Travel Therapy and the Body's Defense Systems
Viewed through an entropy lens, travel therapy could become a meaningful health intervention, Ms. Hu said. The idea is that positive travel experiences, as part of a person's environment, may help the body maintain a healthier low entropy state by influencing four major body systems.
Travel often combines unfamiliar surroundings with relaxing experiences. New settings can stimulate the body, raise metabolic activity, and help activate self organizing processes that keep biological systems working smoothly. These experiences may also prompt the adaptive immune system, which helps the body recognize and respond to outside threats.
Ms. Hu said that this reaction improves the body's ability to perceive and defend itself against external threats.
"Put simply, the self-defense system becomes more resilient. Hormones conducive to tissue repair and regeneration may be released and promote the self-healing system's functioning."
Stress Relief, Movement, and Healthy Aging
Relaxing travel activities may also help reduce chronic stress and calm an overactive immune response. Recreation can ease tension and fatigue in the muscles and joints, supporting metabolic balance and strengthening the body's ability to resist wear and tear.
This matters because travel is rarely just sitting still. Trips often include walking through cities, hiking trails, climbing, cycling, or simply spending more time on your feet than usual. That physical activity can increase metabolism, energy use, and nutrient movement throughout the body, all of which may support the systems that keep the body repaired and resilient.
"Participating in these activities could enhance the body's immune function and self-defense capabilities, bolstering its hardiness to external risks. Physical exercise may also improve blood circulation, expedite nutrient transport, and aid waste elimination to collectively maintain an active self-healing system. Moderate exercise is beneficial to the bones, muscles, and joints in addition to supporting the body's anti-wear-and-tear system," Ms. Hu said.
A Field That Is Still Taking Shape
Since the 2024 study, related work has continued to explore travel therapy as a possible health and wellness approach. A 2025 research note by Hu and colleagues described travel therapy as an emerging approach in which positive travel experiences may promote well being, while also emphasizing the need to weigh benefits against risks.
Another 2025 paper called for closer collaboration between travel medicine and tourism, reflecting a growing interest in ho