What is The Return Trip Effect? Do you often feel that the journey home feels faster than when you go? Even though the distance traveled on the way home and away is the same? In fact, it’s quite natural. Because researchers have been observing this phenomenon for a long time. They refer to it as the “Return Trip Effect”. This question is, why does the return journey feel faster than when you leave?
The Return Trip Effect
Although it feels fast, the fact is that the return journey is not faster than the leaving journey. It’s all, it’s just in our brains. As we travel, our brains tend to focus more on digesting the routes and objects we encounter along the way.
When our brain is focused, our brain’s perception of time, too, will feel longer. This is often encountered by high school students whose brains try to focus on math lessons in the classroom, who feel like time is stalled.
And when we go home, if we go down the same path, our brains become more familiar. We no longer have to work hard to focus, so our brain’s perception of time, it’s also going to feel faster.
Therefore, a study in New Zealand found that this phenomenon occurs more often when we travel to new places that are not yet known because our brains try to be more focused. Whereas in places that we already know or go through every day, this phenomenon is rare.
Whereas, there’s another opinion saying, this phenomenon happens, because when we leave, we expect time to arrive. When we go, we often encounter a lot of things, so we keep checking our time targets. We are making the psychological effect that the journey feels longer.
Whereas on the way home, the journey feels shorter, because we are often no longer burdened with the expectations of our time, to arrive.
So, hopefully, this article not only helps you understand travel times but also helps remind you, to always enjoy your trip every day. And as always, thank you.
