There’s a specific kind of feeling that travel gives you – the kind you can’t quite replicate anywhere else, like that first sunrise in a new city or the smell of the ocean from your balcony. It’s those moments of pure presence and clarity that you find yourself longing to return to well after your trip has ended.
According to Antoinette Turner, General Manager at Flight Centre South Africa, this is nostalgia in action. “What makes this ‘take me back’ feeling so powerful is that we live in an always switched-on society that constantly yearns for a time before smartphones. We saw this clearly when social media feeds were flooded with ‘2016 vs 2026’ posts earlier this year,” she says.
She references Gartner research, indicating that 68% of consumers are nostalgic for the pre-digital era. “It’s quite the paradox, but as we continue to scroll and reminisce, we also have to ponder: do we really want to go back in time, or do we just want to feel differently about where we are now?” she asks.
Chris Ross, VP Analyst at Gartner, argues that what we’re really missing isn’t being phone-free, but rather a sense of certainty and completion:
“Pre-digital life wasn’t objectively better, but it felt more knowable,” he explains. “Digital life is infinite optionality, which sounds incredible until you realise it’s also infinite uncertainty, infinite incompleteness. There’s always more. Nothing is ever done.”
In other words, nostalgia isn’t just reminiscing; it’s an emotional signal revealing what we actually need: presence, certainty, and the feeling that something, somewhere, is finished.
Travel to engage, not escape
If there’s one experience that has been deeply tied to nostalgia, and that speaks directly to what Ross describes, it’s travel.
Immersed in the tourism industry, Turner emphasises she frequently hears travel described or promoted as an escape. “While this is not entirely wrong, there’s a tendency to unconsciously regard it as a quick fix for anxiety and constant worrying,” she comments.
“As effective as nostalgia can be in helping us revisit the past as a temporary respite, travelling offers an opportunity to help us reclaim our sense of presence in the time and place we live in right now. Instead of staying online and looking back to the ‘good, old days’, travel demands that we actively go out and discover life’s ultimate luxury: lasting meaning and a deep connection to the real world.”
Travel also requires action. Much like you can’t physically transport yourself to the 80s, you also can’t click your heels and instantly arrive on a tropical beach. You have to brave an airport and a potential flight reroute, and in many cases, engage with people who speak another language. So, as wonderful as travel can be, it can be inconvenient. It can be awkward. But that’s also the point. As Ross states, “The friction is the feature. The boundaries are the benefit.”
“The act of going somewhere previously unexplored can be much more than simply escaping,” explains Turner. “Travelling has the potential to remind us of the rewards of pursuing discomfort in our daily lives: sitting through awkward silences instead of picking up our phone or even just leaving the house when we’d rather stay in and scroll.”
Despite all that technology can do, it’s rarely an effective substitute for the value of physical presence and deep, nourishing relationships. Much like the finite experience of a holiday, in-person moments are fleeting… but that’s exactly what makes them so profound and worthy of reminiscing about further down the line.
So, where to from here?
Turner worries that, as a society, if we keep looking back too much, we’ll have nothing new to look back on in the next decade. But as history shows, we can adapt. We can build resilient communities suited to changing times.
“There are already signs of this shift taking shape in how we travel,” she says. “Increasingly, people are choosing slower, more intentional experiences over fast-paced, checklist-style trips.”
Data from Flight Centre’s Global PR survey shows that South Africans are among the most likely travellers to prioritise slow and restful travel, with Gen Z and Millennials leading the way. This includes a growing interest in immersive experiences – engaging with local history, art, culture, and places of spiritual or personal significance.
“This reflects a thirst for belonging and exploration, a large consequence, I suspect, of the digital revolution and the isolating forces of the internet and smartphones,” comments Turner.
“I believe those of us in the travel industry are in a privileged position to encourage a sense of ‘nowstalgia’, not to promote travel as an easy mechanism to bypass our problems, but to remind people that the good life can still happen in real life. Because isn’t that ultimately what we all want?” she concludes.