Scientists say travel could slow aging and boost your health

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 how vacations, health risks, preventive care, and traveler well being overlap. A 2025 systematic review also found that tourism and healthy aging is becoming an important interdisciplinary research area, but remains underexplored and in need of stronger methods and clearer future research directions.

Together, these newer findings support a careful interpretation: travel may offer real health related benefits, especially when it includes movement, social connection, novelty, and restoration, but researchers are still working to understand how strong those effects are and who benefits most.

The Risks Behind the Benefits

The same research also cautions that travel is not automatically healthy. Tourists can face infectious diseases, accidents, injuries, violence, unsafe food or water, and other risks linked to poor planning or unsuitable travel choices.

"Conversely, tourism can involve negative experiences that potentially lead to health problems, paralleling the process of promoting entropy increase. A prominent example is the public health crisis of COVID-19."

The central message is not that any trip will slow aging. Rather, positive travel experiences may help the body and mind function better by combining novelty, relaxation, physical activity, and social connection. When travel is safe, restorative, and active, it may do more than create memories. It could help support healthier aging from the inside out.