Dr Charlotte Russell, Clinical Psychologist & Founder

What a year it has been for The Travel Psychologist! This year our traffic from Google really took off, and we made a lot of links with media outlets from around the world. I’ve loved chatting with journalists about all things travel and well-being, and seeing so many of you read our work.

Here are my highlights from this year:

Guest posts

In January, Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist, Dr Julia Cook wrote Can travel help to keep our brain healthy and active as we age?   As well as being a good friend of mine, Dr Julia is an expert in dementia and a frequent traveller herself, so it was great to read her thoughts on how travel can help to keep our brains healthy!

ADHD has been a hot topic in recent years with an increasing awareness of how ADHD related differences and challenges can present in different ways. To meet the growing thirst for knowledge in this area, Dr Laura Wade (Principal Clinical Psychologist) and Tara Clegg (Assistant Psychologist)  wrote Travelling with ADHD: Advice from Psychologists. This was a great post for many reasons but mainly because I can see people are finding and reading it, and I’m pretty sure they’re finding it helpful. This is nice to see.

Interviewing experts

Moving abroad can be a huge transition so I wanted to ensure we have some helpful advice in this area. With this in mind, I interviewed the brilliant Wendy Kendall, an Occupational Psychologist who is very experienced in supporting employees in their transitions to working abroad. The finished article How to thrive when you move abroad has been very popular, and I hope helpful to those in this situation.

Another favourite interview was with the ‘Original’ Travel Psychologist Dr Michael Brein for How to be a better traveller. I loved hearing about how Dr Michael completed his PhD in Hawai’i in the 1970s. He really was a pioneer in the world of Travel Psychology. I found it fascinating to hear his top tips and I hope you will enjoy reading them!

Posts from our regular contributors

Our super talented team have written some real gems over the past year.

Dr Jill kicked off with Travel and the importance of psychological flexibility  Our readers have been spending a lot longer than average perusing this one which tells us that there is lots to take away.

Dr Nicola’s most popular article this year has been Adventure tourism: how to have an adventure that’s right for you. Dr Nicola is certainly our most adventurous contributor and was definitely the right person to write this!

In the summer Dr Jenna wrote What are the psychological benefits of travelling alone? This has been a super popular article with lots of clicks from Google and it’s nice to see that people are interested in reading credible information on this topic.

My favourite press interviews

One of my favourite parts of working on The Travel Psychologist is collaborating with journalists. I love being asked curious and interesting questions and seeing how writers can skilfully weave my comments into their stories.

My two favourites collaborations this year have been with I lived in seven countries over three years, I felt homeless and suffered burnout – beware of the hype (inews.co.uk) and What is ‘Vacation Brain’—and Is It Real? – AFAR

And there it is – our year in review. Best wishes to all our readers and I hope you have a peaceful festive season.

Dr Charlotte and The Travel Psychologist team