Walking holidays might seem like a simple concept, but there are more benefits to them than many people realize.
Of course, we know that being out in the fresh air, exercising and away from our offices is going to be healthy – but there’s more to it than that.
If you were on the fence about whether to book your walking holiday, this article looks at some extra reasons you may want to consider.
Creativity through movement
The simple act of walking triggers a fascinating neurological phenomenon that boosts creative thinking.
It makes sense logically, but research backs it up too, as the alternating left-right motion of walking stimulates communication between brain hemispheres, increasing creative output by up to 60%.
This happens because walking activates the default mode network, brain regions that become active during rest and mind-wandering.
On walking holidays, this effect is amplified even moreso by novel environments.
Your brain is simultaneously processes unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells while maintaining rhythmic bilateral movement – these act as triggers for your mind to cling onto associations and different trains of thought.
Microbiome diversity from local cuisine exposure
Your gut microbiome, which is made up of trillions of bacteria in your digestive system, is central to your immune function and mood regulation.
The way to boost the gut biome is to boost diversity.
Walking holidays offer a unique way to do this through the varied local cuisines that hotel resort chains or city-break international franchises simply don’t provide.
Walking through rural France, you might sample unpasteurised local cheeses containing beneficial bacteria strains specific to that region (literal mold, if you will).
Mediterranean routes expose you to olive oils from fermented olives to wild herbs that introduce different microbial communities.
Companies like Orbis Ways help you organise routes through sampling regions and smaller villages.
Improved spatial navigation
Unlike following GPS directions, walking holidays force you to engage spatial navigation systems in ways modern life rarely demands.
You’re constantly reading maps, identifying landmarks, calculating distances, and making directional decisions based on terrain and weather.
This navigation activates the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for spatial memory and learning.
Studies on London taxi drivers showed that intense spatial navigation actually increases hippocampal volume. Walking holidays can do the same.
Natural circadian rhythm reset
Walking holidays provide highly effective circadian rhythm resets. Extended outdoor walking exposes you to natural light patterns that regulate melatonin production and cortisol.
In other words, you actually see sunrise and sunset, unlike when in the office, and let your body get in touch with these cycles.
Ultimately, it helps you sleep and recover better, not to mention the reduced blue light as you’re away from technology.
Exposure therapy for modern anxieties
Modern life bombards us with chronic low-level stressors like notifications, deadlines and constant connectivity.
Walking holidays provides natural exposure therapy that rebuilds tolerance for uncertainty while removing artificial stressors.
Walking for hours without a phone signal forces you to sit with uncertainty and boredom – experiences many now find intensely uncomfortable.
This gradual exposure recalibrates your nervous system’s stress response.
Geological and historical time perspective shifts
Walking holidays, particularly those on ancient routes or through landscapes shaped over time, provide visceral connections to geological and historical time scales that help shift perspective on daily concerns.
There’s something about walking along Hadrian’s Wall or through glaciers that forces your brain to grapple with time scales far beyond human experience.
This perspective shift, called “temporal distancing” by psychologists, measurably reduces stress and improves decision-making. Gaining perspective is useful for dealing with life’s biggest challenges.
Improved weather sensitivity and adaptation
Unlike climate-controlled environments, walking holidays exposes you to natural weather variations that restore your body’s adaptive responses to temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure changes.
This exposure gradually improves weather sensitivity – your ability to sense incoming changes through subtle physical cues, as well as your ability to deal with the heat or cold.
Your body learns to adapt more efficiently to temperature variations, improving circulation and thermoregulation.
You become more attuned to barometric pressure changes, and this helps predict weather shifts.
Barefoot-adjacent benefits through varied terrain
While not walking barefoot, varied terrain on walking holidays provides similar benefits. Your feet encounter different textures and surfaces like rocky paths, sandy beaches, forest floors, grassy meadows.
These challenge your balance, proprioception, and foot strength in ways flat, uniform surfaces never can.
This terrain can actually have lasting effects as it strengthens small stabilizing muscles in the feet and lower legs.
This improves ankle mobility and enhances proprioceptive awareness.
Digital detox with gradual reintegration
Walking holidays offer highly effective digital detoxes because the physical demands naturally reduce device desire rather than requiring willpower-based restriction.
You quite literally don’t have a reason to pull your phone out when hiking up a difficult mountain – your attention and focus are taken up, nor do you have a desire to be needlessly distracted with a hit of dopamine.
Unlike abrupt digital detoxes that create anxiety, walking holidays allow gradual reintegration.
You might check your phone briefly at day’s end or perhaps for navigation, but you’re still breaking up your bad habits that lead to hundreds of phone unlocks each day.
Metabolic flexibility through varied energy demands
Finally, walking holidays create metabolic demands that improve metabolic flexibility. This is your body’s ability to efficiently switch between burning carbohydrates and fats for fuel.
Unlike steady-state gym exercise, walking holidays have constantly varying intensities like steep climbs that demand quick energy, as well as long gentle descents and varied terrain.
This variation, combined with changes in meal timing and food availability, encourages your body to become more efficient at accessing different fuel sources.
As we can see, walking holidays have a wide range of benefits, and this is ignoring the most obvious ones like building fitness, getting in touch with nature and strengthening core muscles.
Ultimately, novel environments and food lead us to be more efficient and adaptive.
The beauty is that a strict detox (be it alcohol, phones, or other bad habits) isn’t needed through will – it will happen naturally.
