Silence Is What You Need From Your Travels This Year

06.03.2024 - 00:07 / cntraveler.com

I’ll be honest: I’m not good at sitting with silence. According to my Spotify Wrapped, I amassed an impressive (worrying?) 75,000 minutes of music this year. That’s not including the podcasts I brush my teeth to or the audiobooks I regularly fall asleep to.

Do I have a problem? Quite possibly. But I’m not alone. More and more of us are living our lives to the tune of news podcasts and algorithmically curated Spotify playlists, and falling asleep to the soft glow of our laptop screens or the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry. Podcast streams have doubled in the last six years, while audiobook consumption is up 94%. Music streaming is also on the rise, with 1.1 billion of us expected to be subscribed to a music streaming service in 2028.

We live in a noisy world with diminishing space for a wandering mind. With so much content vying for our attention and providing a constant soundtrack to our always-on lives, opportunities to sit quietly with ourselves are rare. “People are becoming less accustomed to silence in our digital age”, says neuroscientist Anne-Sophie Fluri. “Noise can cause stress, especially when we don’t have control over it.” Indeed, studies have linked noise pollution to a range of health problems, including depression and cardiovascular disease.

In contrast, research suggests that spending time in silence has countless well-being benefits, helping us to sit more comfortably with our thoughts and feelings, better manage stress, and even boost creativity. One study in mice linked periods of silence with the development of new brain cells, while another found that two minutes of silence produced a more calming effect than relaxing music. According to Anne-Sophie, incorporating silence into our daily lives can “improve our communication with others, deepen our relationship with ourselves, and build resilience in the face of life’s challenges.”

In overstimulated times, silence is a hot commodity. The ‘silent walking’ trend that took TikTok by storm at the end of last year reflects a growing impulse to find new ways to escape the noise of our tech-fueled lives. In our travels, too, we’re increasingly looking to switch off and find refuge from the chaos for a little while. Hence the rise of silent travel: one of our top travel trends for 2024.

Encompassing everything from silent retreats to digital detox cabins to silent walking tours and even concerts, silent travel helps us disconnect to reconnect—to nature, to our true priorities, and to ourselves. It represents a more mindful form of travel, that doesn’t leave you needing a holiday to recover from your holiday.

This is a new trend with ancient roots. In its purest form, silent travel is associated with silent meditation retreats. These originated