Travel and Happiness: Booking.com’s Survey of 17,000 Holidaymakers
Can a holiday make you happier than your wedding day? In a survey of more than 17,000 travellers in 17 countries, almost half said yes. Boo...
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Science: Stories & Places to Explore
Read what the travel happiness survey actually measured, why the wedding comparison needs context and what is useful for planning your own holiday. Enjoy the build-up to your next trip with thoughtful planning ideas, a manageable shortlist and a realistic look at research on anticipation.
Start with Travel vs Marriage: What That Happiness Survey Really Found and Why Planning a Trip Can Be Part of the Fun.
Hiking and the Brain: Four Studies on Nature Walks, Mood and Attention
A walk in the woods can leave you calmer, sharper and in a better mood, and researchers have started to measure why. Brain scans, creativit...
Wanderlust Gene DRD4-7R: What the Migration Science Really Says
Some people cannot look at a map without planning a trip. Is that restlessness written in our DNA? The popular "wanderlust gene" ...
Travel Anticipation: Why Planning a Trip Makes You Happier
Part of a holiday’s happiness arrives before you leave home. Psychologists have measured it: people who are looking forward to a trip repor...
Blue Spaces and Wellbeing: What Research Says About Time by the Water
Sit by the sea for half an hour and something shifts: your shoulders drop, your thoughts slow down and the day feels lighter. Scientists no...
The True Size of the Universe: A Short Video and the Numbers Behind It
“The True Size of the Universe As We Know It” is a short animation published by BuzzFeed on YouTube in December 2014, with a simple message ...
Green Bank, West Virginia: Life in the National Radio Quiet Zone
In a green valley of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, a giant white dish rises above the trees. This is the Green Bank Telescope, and to ke...
Catatumbo Lightning: Lake Maracaibo, the Lightning Capital of the World
Over the south-western corner of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, where the Catatumbo River flows into the lake, thunderstorms light up the nigh...
The Ocean Cleanup’s 2015 Tsushima Plan and the Systems That Followed
In May 2015 The Ocean Cleanup, the organisation founded by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, then 20, announced that it would deploy its first ocea...
Alexander Gerst's Earth Timelapse from the ISS: 12,500 Photos in Ultra HD
During his six months on the International Space Station in 2014, German astronaut Alexander Gerst kept cameras clicking at regular interva...
Beth Moon's Ancient Trees: Platinum Portraits of the World's Oldest Trees
Beth Moon has travelled across the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa to photograph some of the oldest and largest tree...
Snake Island, Brazil: Ilha da Queimada Grande and the Golden Lancehead
About 33 kilometres off the coast of São Paulo state lies Ilha da Queimada Grande, better known as Snake Island. This rocky, forested speck ...