A favorite topic on travel blogs, websites and in the travel industry is to talk about travel personalities. But is there really something to it? Let's explore. First of all, what is personality? We consider it enduring patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, essentially, what is distinct about you and what makes you you. The other thing about personality is we consider it to be a collection of traits, things that are persistent and consistent about you over time.

So are their unique travel personalities? Well, first, let's start with some theories about basic personalities. So in psychology, there's what we call the Big Five personality traits. And there's been a lot of research that shows that these five categories or traits are really consistent and predictable and people over time So there's the openness trait and this in general is the tendency to appreciate new ideas, values, feelings, being open to new experiences. conscientiousness is the tendency to be careful to be on time follow rules, and be hardworking. extraversion is the a tendency to be talkative and very sociable, enjoy being with others and have a more dominant personality style.

Agreeableness is the tendency to agree and go along with others, rather than to assert one's opinions and choices. And neuroticism is the tendency to frequently experience negative emotions such as intense anger, worry, sadness, and to be very sensitive within personal relationships. So these five traits are thought to exist on a continuum. So you could either be very open or not very open, very conscientious or not very conscientious, very extroverted, or the eye Opposite of not very extroverted is introverted. So these are the five personality traits that are really big in psychology. So that means they're probably travel personality traits, right.

And the idea in some of the research and writings about travel personalities is that different travel personalities will influence things like your travel preferences, such as your vacation destination, the type of leisure activities, you might choose brand selection, and so forth. So this is something that's actually really interesting to marketers. And as I said, this is a favorite topic on different blogs and travel writings. So almost every travel blog has some sort of way to categorize people into travel personalities. So this one I thought was really cool from Nomad wallet. And it really looks at a way sort of a flowchart of your preferences and then how you should be categorized as a traveler.

So it has things like one, if you answer yes or no to I have to be near my family, friends and pets. And so if you say, Ah, I would die without them, I can't be away from them. You're more of a vacationer, right. If you say, I'll miss them. But you know, we can still keep in touch online, then that means you probably think short trips are awesome. All right, and you're a vacation or again, however, if you could be away from them for a while and feel like you need more time to fully experience a place and you also want to have a home and nicer things, then that means you might like to be an X pack, which is a way to be away from home but still have some stability.

Now, if you're someone, if you look at the bottom on the right, that means a secure job in a stable income. But you also feel like life is too short to just play it You might be something like a nomad. And now there's this big emphasis on what they call digital nomads, people who take gigs or different consulting jobs in this gig economy. And they actually travel around the world, they have a stable income, but again, they still go after the adventure and a bit of the instability. Alright, so this is kind of a fun way to think about yourself as either being more of someone that goes on vacation and then comes back home, or an expat who is ready to move somewhere for long periods of time and be out of the country or a nomad. Someone who can go from here to there, likes a little bit of stability, but really likes to go out and experience adventure.

Another type of personality characteristic or system of classifying people is a way to look at what type of activities people who travel would prefer. And so some websites look at things here. 12 different categories, the culture creature, the city slicker, the sight seeker, the Family Guy, the beach bum, the avid athlete, the shopping shark, the all arounder, the trail tracker, the history buff, the boater and the gamer. And these are pretty self explanatory. These are again more of marketing sort of categories to try to be able to target travelers and leisure people to see exactly what type of activities they would prefer. So it's interesting to see and think about what type of traveler you will be in terms of these categories.

Now, there actually has been some empirical scientific research in the travel industry on whether or not there are actual travel personalities. And so a researcher named plug actually did some research and he came up with this classification of travel personalities, and so he differentiated between allocentric travelers and cycle centric travelers allocentric travelers are more people who are sort of collectivistic in their orientation. They love to be around other people and these travelers really prefer from their research, unstructured vacations. So not like a cruise or a specific tour where you do something every day. They like to have it unstructured where they go to a place and they explore on their own. They also prefer more involvement with local culture.

They don't want to just go to a resort and stay inside and not see and explore outside. Okay, now the psycho centric traveler is as you can imagine the opposite of this. These are travelers who like to get out but again, prefer familiarity, so they might want to stay at a hotel chain that's known to them if they no matter where they go. They want to stay at the Hyatt or the Marriott or some chain that they feel that is secure and they are familiar And they know, they also prefer package tours and more of the touristy activities. If they go to a country or city, they want to see if they go to Paris, they can't miss the Eiffel Tower, they can't miss certain things that are very tourist oriented, whereas the allocentric traveler could, you know, probably take it or leave it, but they would be more focused on involvement with the local culture.

So, this is an interesting way to think of two extremes of travel preferences and travel personality. So, other researchers have taken plugs research and try to differentiate travelers again in terms of group travelers, and independent travelers. So group travelers, research shows that they value being well respected and having warm relationships with others. So this is a type of personal value that individuals might have in it has been shown to actually affect Or impact the type of traveler travel they prefer. So group travelers, people who like to travel in groups, they would prefer being well well respected and also prefer well, warm relationships with others. Then there are independent travelers and these are travelers that value tend to value more self fulfillment and accomplishment.

And this might be the type of traveler that goes after adventure, pushing the extreme going to, you know, where no man has gone before, and they want to get that sense of accomplishment. People who climb mountains and people who serve the you know, biggest waves in different ocean locations, these are people that would be considered independent travelers. So a different way to think about travelers than the allocentric and psycho centric. So your challenge is to try to understand your travel personal analogy. So given some of the personality types that we just discussed, I want you to go back and try to figure out use one of them to figure out your travel personality, either a group or independent traveler, and allocentric or a psycho centric traveler or a nomad, expat or vacationer or one of those 12 personality types that we went over. So try to look at one of those that appeals to you and try to figure out what your travel personality is.

And then once you figure that out, try to list three different activities that you think would go with that travel personality. Okay. So fill out your form and get to know your travel personality better.