The Impact of Travel Documentaries on the Creative Imagination

Last year, I discovered the YouTube channel TRACKS – Travel Documentaries that covers it all “from the freezing ice caps in Antarctica to the sweltering heat of the Sahara Desert”. I watched a few episodes and enjoyed them—and got to revisit an experience that was a very important part of my childhood and adolescence. My sister and I spent hour after hour watching travel documentaries—in addition to hearing the globe-trotting adventures of certain family members. Both these instilled in us a great love of the entire world and an interest in learning about different countries and cultures, no matter how distant and exotic.
One series that we would always be glued to was Globe Trekker (originally titled “Lonely Planet”—inspired by the Melbourne-based travel guide publisher of the same name). I still remember the names of the presenters—Ian Wright, Justine Shapiro, Megan McCormick, Zay Harding. I would greatly admire how they navigated foreign environments and interacted with strangers. Another favourite series was Taboo on National Geographic—featuring all sorts of weird and scary practices and phenomena. There were several other shows as well. I remember being once amazed by an intrepid New Zealander introduced as someone “who had climbed Everest multiple times” approaching Singapore, on his way to Siberia…
I believe viewing such programming “primed” me in a very substantial way—for a particular perspective and way of life. It pulled me into the world in a very positive, life-affirming manner. It equipped me with the ability to adapt to and “enjoy” societies, cultures and climates without shocks and complaints. It made my default disposition that of wonder, adventure and curiosity rather than alienation and discomfort. When I imagine the world, I largely consider it a place of possibility even though at times dangerous and violent—where I could try things out, where calculated risks could be rewarded. I feel if I am reasonable, cautious and persistent in its exploration, many wondrous surprises may be delivered to me.

I don’t think without this experience of travel documentaries I would have felt the ease and confidence that I do today in establishing connections with a wide variety of people. Also, my eagerness to reach out to people professionally in different territories emerges out of a strong prior awareness of the fact that these territories and these people actually exist. The world map is perpetually on my mind—I never feel that I am all alone. The video imagery impressed on me early on—of local populations in particular landscapes—has been very crucial in motivating me to network day in and day out with people across the world, to introduce myself and to learn about them. I would not have had the many enriching and entertaining conversations that I have had till now without this trait of mine. I would have been a less enthusiastic researcher, and life, overall, would have been less exciting.
The positive effects of travel on the brain and mental health have been researched for quite a while—even when “it does not have to mean going abroad at great expense and can be as simple as visiting a foreign restaurant or talking to a stranger.” But engagement with travel imagery, especially with motion and with human presence—before or without physical travel—may also significantly stimulate the viewer.

Next, I have realised that travel documentaries showing something unusual that challenges our views, unsettles us, defies expectations or leaves us in awe—for instance, VICE presentations of contemporary Romanian witches and mass gymnastics in North Korea—are great exercises in the stretching of the imagination. These visuals and narratives can sometimes give little jolts to a complacent and boring existence—and such startled states can help us cultivate new manners of thinking and doing. The key, I believe, is in feeling something “different”, out of the ordinary, that has the power to enable us to look at the world with new eyes and keep us involved in life with a new energy.

Even though I don’t myself directly make art but work in art and culture in other capacities like content production, curatorial research, networking, etc., I have felt the positive impact of travel documentaries on my professional life in a considerable way. Artists may reap the benefits at another level. Perhaps just once a week, opening up a channel like TRACKS, seeing foreign landscapes and cityscapes, mysterious festivals and mythologies, uncommon rural and urban structures might leave you fuelled with fresh inspiration for your craft, a sense of connectedness with the world, and motivation to reach out to those whom you weren’t aware existed.
Written by: Tulika Bahadur