A guide to planning a trip with more purpose and intention

Setting a clear intention before you leave home is the key to meaningful travel. Find out how to get in touch with your ‘why’, identify an intention that resonates, and allow it to shape a trip that will change you.

Most of us approach travel the same way we approach everything else when we’re busy: reactively. We book the trip, pack the bag, and hope the change of scene does something.

Sometimes it does.

Often it doesn’t, and we come home wondering why.

This guide is about a different approach, one that turns an ordinary trip into something more meaningful.

Not a complicated approach, and not one that requires you to turn your holiday into an arduous self-improvement project. Just a few shifts in how you think about a trip before you take it, shifts that can change what you come home with more than any destination ever could.

This is meaningful travel. It starts before you even book.

Why travel with intention changes everything

Simon Sinek famously showed us that the most inspiring leaders, brands, and movements all ‘start with why’. It’s not what they do, or even how they do it. It’s why they do what they do that matters.

It’s a principle that, at its heart, is simply about setting an intention before anything else. And it translates beautifully to travel planning.

Without that why, the default is to plan a trip from the outside in. We pick a destination, book flights, research things to see. The what comes first, and the why, if it surfaces at all, tends to be vague. A break from routine. A reward. The feeling that we should see this place before we die.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But it leaves something important out. And it might just explain why you sometimes come home from a trip feeling vaguely dissatisfied, still quietly craving something more.

When you travel without a clear sense of why you’re there, something subtle but insidious happens. Every decision – where to go today, how long to stay, whether this is worth the effort – becomes harder than it needs to be.

Without a personal framework to measure experiences against, you’re left using someone else’s: the guidebook’s, Instagram’s, the other tourists’. You end up ticking other people’s boxes, not your own.

I know this feeling well.

I’d been to India several times over the years, and something always called me back. Yet I always came home feeling strangely disconnected and empty. India is an overwhelming place, and without a clear intention to anchor me, the overwhelm won. I’d retreat behind a kind of invisible barrier, distancing myself from the very experiences I’d travelled so far to have.

Then I’d come home the same person as I’d left, wondering vaguely if it had all been worth the effort.

Then, after some years, the opportunity to return presented itself. This time I sat down before I booked anything and asked myself what I actually wanted from this trip. Why was it still calling me?

Two things emerged.

The first was connection, to myself and to the people I’d meet. I thought carefully about what that might look like in practice: pushing past self-consciousness, staying open, gently noticing when my barriers started sliding up.

The second was more earthly: I sew a lot of my own clothes, and have always loved textiles and fabric, and I wanted to follow that thread through India’s extraordinary craft traditions.

Those two intentions – one inner, one practical – changed everything.

I found myself in the back streets of Varanasi’s silk-weaving district, seeking out a tiny ‘factory’ that turned out to be a single loom on the ground floor of someone’s home. The way that otherworldly green fibre caught the light as the shuttle ran back and forth. The quiet care and pride of the craftsman tending this modest machine as it produced something so exquisite. These are moments that still move me when I think about them now.

I had moments of genuine connection with people I would previously have walked past. The trip became a completely different experience. This wasn’t because India had changed. It was all because I had arrived with a reason to be there.

That’s what intention does. When you know your why, every decision has a compass. Where to go, what to linger over, what to say yes to. All of it becomes clearer, because you have something personal to measure it against.

What makes intention more than just a useful decision-making matrix is that as humans, we are wired for purpose.

Research in psychology consistently shows that a sense of meaning and direction isn’t just nice to have. It’s fundamental to our wellbeing. When we have a clear purpose, even difficult or unfamiliar experiences feel manageable, even enlivening. And when we don’t, even beautiful ones can feel hollow.

Travel with intention taps directly into this. It connects what happens out there in the world to something of genuine significance in your life. The destination stops being a backdrop and starts being a catalyst.

That’s the difference between a trip you remember and one that dissolves before you even get back home.

Here’s a small but radical idea: before you open a flight comparison site, before you start a Pinterest board of beautiful hotels, before you ask your well-travelled friends where you simply must go. Pause. Ask yourself: why do I think I want this trip in the first place?

Not where.

Why.

This single shift – putting your intention before your destination – changes the nature of a trip more than almost any other decision you’ll make. When you know what you’re seeking, the destination becomes something you choose in service of that. Rather than something you hope will magically deliver some feeling you haven’t even clearly articulated for yourself yet.

Think of it this way. If what you’re really craving is a sense of awe and the feeling of being humbled by something ancient or vast, that points somewhere quite different from a trip motivated by a desire to reconnect with your creative self.

Both are valid. But they’re not the same trip, and the same destination won’t serve both equally well.

Of course, not everyone has the luxury of intention-first travel. Maybe the flights are already booked, the accommodation confirmed, and you’re reading this two weeks before departure wondering if it’s too late.

It isn’t.

A pre-booked trip is absolutely still open to intention. You’re simply working in the other direction, asking: given where I’m going, what could this trip mean for me? The destination will have its own gifts to offer. Your job is to decide what you’re open to receiving.

But if you do have the freedom to choose: start with your why. The destination will follow.

Ask most people what they want from their next trip and the answer comes quickly:

I just need to switch off. Get away from it all. Rest.

And honestly? That’s a completely valid starting point. Rest is not nothing. Decompression is not nothing.

But try sitting with it a little longer.

Because underneath “I need a break” there’ll be something more specific. A more personal longing. The sense that something in your life needs to shift, but you can’t quite name it. A feeling of having drifted from yourself. A creative impulse that’s been starved of oxygen. A relationship with your true nature that needs some attention.

These are the things that travel can genuinely reach, if you take some time to uncover them before you go.

A useful practice is to sit somewhere quiet with a notebook and work through some or all of the prompts below.

The first three are practical and grounded. These are good starting points if this kind of reflection is new to you.

The last three go a little deeper.

Follow whatever flows most easily, and don’t feel pressure to answer all these questions. 

Write quickly, without editing yourself.

What’s been calling me lately? Maybe an interest, a question, a part of yourself that you haven’t visited in a while.

What do I keep saying I’ll do “when I have more time”? Could this be that time?

What do I want more of in my life right now? Could this trip be a laboratory for that?

How do I want to feel when I come home?

Is there a fear or limitation I’ve been bumping up against lately that travel might help me examine?

What kind of person do I want to be on this trip? What would that version of me do differently?

You might find that your answers surprise you. Often the things that surface aren’t grand or dramatic: they’re quite small and specific. A desire to feel less guarded. A wish to make something with your hands. A need to be somewhere ancient and quiet. These small specific things are exactly where your intention lives. There’s a line from Rumi: “What you seek is seeking you.” Trust that. The intention that keeps surfacing when you sit quietly with yourself is worth paying attention to.

If the journaling prompts above haven’t yet unlocked a clear intention, or if you just think better from examples than from blank pages (I know I do!) here are some of the ways you might find a meaningful thread to follow through a trip.

Think of these not as a prescriptive list but as a menu. One or two might resonate immediately. Others might spark something adjacent.

Some of the most powerful travel intentions are about becoming a slightly different version of yourself. Challenging yourself to strike up conversations with strangers. Practising saying yes to invitations you’d normally decline. Travelling more slowly and mindfully than you usually do. Pushing past the self-consciousness that stops you from fully inhabiting a place.

These kinds of intentions turn every interaction into an opportunity rather than an obstacle. You’ll find a whole collection of these sorts of challenges in our free download: The Meaningful Travel Toolkit.

Give yourself a subject and let it guide you. The Roman Empire. The origins of a particular cuisine. The architecture of a specific era. The life of a writer, artist or other luminary who lived in the places you’re visiting.

A thematic intention like this transforms a trip into something closer to an immersive education, and has the wonderful side effect of making you genuinely interesting to talk to.

Sometimes the intention is simply to be astonished. To seek out the things that make you feel small in the best possible way. Vast landscapes, ancient structures, the sheer improbability of human achievement.

This is a legitimate and profound intention, and one that travel is uniquely well placed to deliver.

Tracing where you came from – visiting the town your great-great-great-grandparents left, walking the streets your ancestors once walked – can be one of the most emotionally resonant things travel offers. Even if the paper trail is thin, the act of being physically present in a place that shaped your lineage has a quality that’s hard to replicate any other way.

Travel creates the conditions for deeper connection – with an old friend, a distant relative, even a partner you’ve been too busy to really talk to. When you’re away from the noise of ordinary life, conversations go somewhere different.

Building a trip around a relationship you want to invest in can be a powerful way of strengthening a connection, while also challenging it!

This is perhaps the most immediately practical kind of intention, and one that can transform the way you research and plan a trip. Food and cooking. Textiles and craft. Photography. Architecture. Yoga. Ceramics. Hiking and nature. Third wave coffee. Bookshops.

Whatever it is that genuinely lights you up, follow it. Let your interests take you to places the guidebooks don’t cover and into conversations you’d never otherwise have.

I once spent several days in San Francisco nerding out and visiting the shooting locations from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It really gave me an unexpectedly rich sense of the city as it once was, long before Silicon Valley reimagined it entirely.And if you’re reading this thinking I don’t really have any hobbies right now: that’s information too. Is there something you’ve always wanted to explore but never made time for? A trip can be the beginning of that, not just the expression of something already established.

Sometimes the most honest intention is simply this: I want to come home feeling more like myself. More rested, more clear, more present. Less fragmented. This kind of intention is harder to plan around than a research theme or a hobby.

But it might be the most important one of all. It asks you to protect time and space on the trip, to resist the urge to fill every hour, and to trust that stillness and solitude have something to offer.

Once you have a sense of your intention, don’t tuck it away and forget about it until you land.

Let it guide your choices in the planning stage, and start by writing it down.

This sounds almost too simple, but it matters.

Not as a rigid goal, but as a living reminder of why you’re going.

Tuck it in your journal, photograph it on your phone, hang it up somewhere you’ll see it as you plan.

When you’re comparing destinations, choosing accommodation, or deciding how to structure your days, come back to it. Ask yourself one simple question: does this serve what I’m here for?

Intentions have a way of dissolving in the noise of airports and itineraries. A written record gives you something to return to, both in the planning stage, and in those moments mid-trip when you feel yourself slipping back into autopilot.

If you haven’t booked yet, let your intention guide where you go rather than the other way around.

Seeking solitude and inner quiet? A busy, overstimulating city is likely to work against you. A slower, less-visited place will probably serve you better.

Following a passion for ancient history? Your shortlist will look very different from someone chasing contemporary art or street food culture.

The world is large. Choose the part of it that’s most likely to meet you where you are.

Intention also shapes the texture of a trip. Not just the destination but the pace, the style, the choices you make along the way.

A slower itinerary with longer stays in fewer places tends to support more intentional travel than a whistle-stop tour of every highlight in Europe.

Staying in locally owned accommodation, hiring local guides, eating where locals eat. These aren’t just ethical choices, they’re practical ones if connection and immersion are part of what you’re seeking.

If your intention has an intellectual or creative dimension, a little preparation goes a long way. Read a novel or watch a movie set in the place you’re visiting. Learn ten words of the local language. Find out if there are artisans, makers, historians or community projects connected to your theme.

Arrive already curious, and you’ll find the trip meets your curiosity halfway.

Hold it lightly

Your intention isn’t a contract. It doesn’t have to be honoured perfectly or followed rigidly. It may even evolve, and that’s ok too: the point is being intentional, not necessarily the intention itself.

Think of it more as a compass than a map. It doesn’t tell you exactly where to go, but it keeps you oriented toward something that matters. And when you lose your way, which you will, it gives you something to come back to.

The planning is done. In the next guide, we’ll look at what intentional travel actually looks like on the ground: how to stay present, move slowly, and make the most of every day once you’ve arrived.