Einstein, Virginia Woolf and Stephen King all swore by it, and now the science is catching up: walking genuinely makes you more creative. A meta-analysis of 23 studies published in PLOS ONE in May found walking has a large effect on divergent thinking - the kind of spontaneous, idea-generating thought that produces novel answers. What it doesn't do is sharpen convergent thinking, the evaluation stage where you judge which of those ideas is actually any good.
The evidence goes beyond lab tests. In a 2024 study, 157 young adults wore activity trackers for five days and answered creativity prompts on their phones as they went about normal life. People who had just taken more steps gave more original answers, and those who generally walked more scored higher across the board. Another study the same year, using sensors on 156 participants, linked more moderate-to-vigorous movement and less sitting to both more frequent creative hobbies and greater creative achievements.
The interesting twist is that freedom matters. A 2022 study found people walking a fixed path back and forth in an empty office produced fewer novel ideas than those allowed to roam wherever they liked. The same held true for sitting: staring at a fixed point dulled thinking compared with sitting however you pleased. Cognitive neuroscientist Barbara Händel, who led that research, argues our cognition is tied up with movement because humans evolved thinking while on the move - finding food, shelter and new places.
Longer term, regular walking boosts blood flow to the brain, improves sleep and raises brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which supports neuroplasticity and new neuron growth.
So what does this mean for travellers? Quite a lot, actually. Holidays are when most of us finally get long, unstructured walks - a beach, a city at dusk, a trail with no agenda. That free-roaming, no-fixed-path kind of walking is exactly the variety the research says unlocks fresh thinking. If you've been chewing on a big decision at work, a week of wandering unfamiliar streets may be more restorative for your mental gears than lying by a pool.
The researchers' practical tips translate neatly to the road. Take a walk at some point in the middle of every day - McMaster University researcher Alex Thabane does it at lunch to break up his thinking. Get outside if you can, since nature helps restore attention, though even pacing around your hotel room counts. And crucially, carry something to capture ideas on the move - your phone or a notepad - because as researcher Christian Rominger notes, the frustrating part of walking is that you can't act on your insights until later. Walk to generate; sit down afterwards, ideally with others, to sort the good ideas from the duds.
For anyone planning a walking-focused trip, this is a nice excuse: that rambling day through a hill town or along a coastal path isn't just pleasant, it's the mental reset your brain has been waiting for. Source: NZ Herald Travel
