As a copywriter who works remotely, just about any time is a good time to travel. Regardless of the season, I’m pretty much game to get moving whenever the opportunity presents itself. Maybe it’s an internal rhythm that took root during a childhood and adolescence punctuated by routine relocations. Regardless of how it started, I now value travel for the creative charge it never fails to deliver. According to science, this charge champions cognition and creativity; in other words, travel keeps us sharp. Good thing for a copywriter to bear in mind when the constant push to create fresh content feels challenging… 

Shake Free of Stale Ideas this Summer

Summertime, of course, is arguably the most popular time to travel, thanks primarily to extended school vacations. So far, my summer days have been spent shuttling back and forth from my home office as a copywriter based in New England to my parent’s home in a suburb of Georgia, where I wrapped up high school and spent my college breaks.

Granted, this isn’t the exotic travel one thinks of when considering summer getaways, but the very act of boarding a plane, after navigating the bustle of Logan Airport,  tends to awaken areas of my brain that send me down new rabbit holes of ideas. Some result in dead ends, of course, but others lead to new places worth considering, with respect to growing my business and exceeding the expectations of my clients as a creative copywriter.

So, what’s that about? How can I trip that I’ve made dozens of times, back and forth to familiar locales, inspire anything fresh?

Set Off and Sharpen Up

Because Science Says Travel Makes You Smarter. Granted, the bulk of this research presented by Forbes Contributor, Jordan Bishop, pertains to international travel and a willingness to engage in multiculturalism; “Travel breaks us out of our parochial ways, forcing us to contemplate other cultures and ways of living that we otherwise wouldn’t. It throws our old conception of reality out the window and replaces it with an updated, more complex one. And it’s precisely this confusion, combined with our brain’s response to it, that pushes us to shift and grow in such unique ways.”

In fact, for a copywriter, Bishop’s piece, Here’s Why Travel Makes You a Better Writer, identifies the act and experience of traveling as the vehicle that helps us arrive at insights. He acknowledges “Anyone who travels while they write knows how much of a roller coaster it can be. Finding your focus, not to mention a quiet place to sit down and peck out a few thousand words, can be difficult…Allowing our minds time to wander is the spark, albeit a counterintuitive one, that prompts the insights we’re seeking.”

Bishop’s assertion calls to mind the quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, “Not all who wander are lost.” In fact, it seems that Bishop, along with the other writers featured in his article, make the case that wandering is how we find what’s missing.

Freelance journalist Barbara Woolsey supports this claim, “I’ve learned over time that the best way of conquering writer’s block is sometimes letting thoughts percolate away from the computer screen—on a walk, under the shower, and on a larger scale, by traveling regularly. New experiences and new stimuli can’t help but open the mind and that’s when insights slip through effortlessly.”

In my case, feeling that charge of energy while treading down the tarmac inspired me to research why travel reawakens stale spots in my mind and sets me back on course with new resolve and motivation. The current course, specifically, is this blog, which had not been updated since mid-April. Gulp.

Despite my love of writing, the blog had become a task that challenged my creativity and exhausted my drive, especially while working to maintain the blogs of my clients. And, similar to going to the gym every day and then skipping a session… it’s amazing how one day turns to two, to ten, to twenty. Time travels on, regardless of what you’re accomplishing or avoiding.

All I can confidently embrace at the moment, as a reminder to myself and a suggestion for anyone else suffering stagnation, is a commitment to movement; whether on your own two feet, behind the wheel, sky-high, or ocean-bound.

Make the miles work for you…