Back in 2019, right before the slow drip of lockdown set in, I travelled to Europe. Like every other twenty-something girl, I biked my way through charming towns, baked under the Mediterranean sun, and lost myself in endless museums. And then just like that it was over. It’s a feeling that’s almost universally affirmed - one minute you’re inhaling a plate of some of the best pasta you’ve ever eaten, the next, you’re back home. At other moments, time seems to slow down to a painstaking snail pace, in particular when we’re experiencing mortal fear. Logically, time is a fixed thing. But time, as we live and embody it, is not – constantly in flux with our perceived sense of the world. BBC broadcaster and psychology writer Claudia Hammond explores the concept of shifting time in her book Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception.

Hammond pens the term the Holiday Paradox to describe the strange phenomenon that can make travelling feel like a literal time warp. Unlike the humdrum of our daily lives, which our brains are able to comprehend on more stable terms, new experiences can jolt us out of this continuum, causing time to speed up or slow down. Indeed, our minds comprehend time in two polar ways – prospective and retrospective time. In ordinary circumstances these align, but it’s in strange and unfamiliar circumstances that they don’t. As Hammond explains, “once we go on vacation, the stimulation of new sights, sounds, and experiences injects a disproportionate amount of novelty that causes these two types of time to misalign. The result is a warped perception of time.” This is an example of “mind time”, the term that neuroscientists and psychologists use to explain the notion that time is actively created by our own brains.

The Holiday Paradox

“once we go on vacation, the stimulation of new sights, sounds, and experiences injects a disproportionate amount of novelty that causes these two types of time to misalign. The result is a warped perception of time.”

Just because time seems abide by its own laws, doesn’t mean that we can’t learn to shape it on our own terms. Of course, we’ll never be able to totally control time (as much as we may wish we had the time-bending powers of Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception), but understanding how and why time shifts can help us to cling on to treasured memories, or be more present. When it comes to travel, the holiday paradox can be a strangely empowering thing. Acknowledging that time speeds up when we’re on holiday, we can harness this knowledge to ground ourselves in the moment, focusing intently on the new sights, sounds, smells, and feelings that surround us. And this, of course, is one of the essential ingredients for transformative travel.

“We will never have total control over this extraordinary dimension. Time will warp and confuse and baffle and entertain however much we learn about its capacities. But the more we learn, the more we can shape it to our will and destiny. We can slow it down or speed it up. We can hold on to the past more securely and predict the future more accurately. Mental time-travel is one of the greatest gifts of the mind. It makes us human, and it makes us special.”

Now, back home in australia, the days spent in europe seem to fold into one another, aperol spritzes bumping up against the greek coast bumping up against the bustle of istanbul’s streets. And yet, specific memories still stand sharp and loud in my memory, like protective armour against the banality of life in lockdown. Indeed, “Our perception of the past moulds our experience of time in the present to a greater degree than we might realize”.

why time flies when you're travelling: the holiday paradox