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Why does the return trip feel shorter than the initial one? It's not necessarily because you're familiar with the route, says a new study.
Getting to a destination usually feels longer than heading back from it. Known as "the return trip effect," the popular wisdom has been that it seems to take less time to go the same distance because a person is now familiar with the route having traveled it before.
But a new study has found that familiarity and predictability might not be the reasons a return trip feels shorter. It suggests a mismatch of expectations is more likely to be one of several possible causes.
"Everyone seemed to think that the return trip effect was caused by recognizing things along the way," says Niels van de Ven, the study's lead author. "However, I also experience it during airplane travel, where I don't recognize things. So I wanted to know why the effect existed."
To find out, his research team first tracked 69 participants on a day-long bus trip. Although each leg took the same amount of time, volunteers reported the initial trip took longer. The more participants believed the outbound route seemed slower than expected, the faster the return bus trip felt -- even though familiar landmarks were seen.
The research appears in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
A second study looked at a different form of transportation -- a bike trip. This time, 97 college freshman biked to a forest clearing using two equally distant routes. Two hours later, one-third returned by the same route while the rest headed back on a different route that was the same length.
Although all the routes took 35 minutes to ride, students estimated the outbound journey took 44 minutes and the return leg took 37 minutes. Students who rode two different routes tended to over-estimate the time each trip took compared to those who went out and back the same way.
Whether by bus or bike, researchers were surprised to find that "people felt the return trip was about 22 percent shorter than the initial trip," says van de Ven, an assistant professor of social psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
He believes that what happens is people are typically too optimistic about the initial trip, which then takes disappointingly long. So when they return, they're now anticipating it will take a long time. But compared to this expectation, the return trip does not seem as bad.
Even so, there are some instances when the return trip effect doesn't apply. One is when a route becomes very familiar, such as a daily commute, because your expectations of the travel time become more accurate.
A second may be when you're going to a negative place, perhaps the dentist. You may arrive sooner than you'd like making the return home seem slower.
Also, you may not experience this effect on an out-and-back marathon course, when you're more exhausted on the return trip. And you wouldn't get the effect if you hiked the same distance up a mountain and then down it because the terrain changes.
Readers, what's your experience: Do you typically feel like a return trip takes a shorter amount of time?
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I feel the excitement and anticipation of a pleasant trip seems to make it take longer to get there. Conversely, the dread of something (such as a dentist appt), seems to not take as long.
I've been driving to Maine & back for 25 years & the return trip ALWAYS seems shorter, no matter how familiar the route
I've experienced that under a variety of circumstances, but was never quite understood why that was the case. I guess I just attributed it to the old saying that "There's no place like home".
For me I always thought it was because I was excited to go somewhere new, so the trip took longer because I was looking forward to it, anticipating it for weeks/months... the return trip the fun is all done... I know what to expect at home... so it takes less time because I'm not excited...
This is exactly what I've always thought, and what I've heard others say. I've never heard anyone say anything like "because the route is new at first, and familiar afterward".
hofera and James 82...You guys are absolutely right in my book. Now the excitement is over and you're going 'home'...back to the usual...hence the reason many of us kids in the back seat would always chime out, "Can't you take the long way home?".
For me trips to dentists and docs and other 'regular' things were just the same coming or going...but, as I said above...'the long way home' was always requested when returning from a trip (even one as familiar as going to out of town relatives or grandparents...)
I thought I was the only one to have this experience! The first time, I was 9 and going to church camp. The trip there took forever (appr. 100 mil.) and going home seemed less than an hour. Two different people had driven, so I thought the second one either went a different way or drove faster. Nope. It happened every year. I think it showed where I'd rather be. Now, I'd rather be home than anywhere else, so no matter where I go, the ride home always seems longer.
I travel with young kids so the trip going somewhere is fraught with anxiety about how it's going to go, not IF it will go well but rather to what degree it will suck. Therefore, the trip going somewhere with my small children is always longer and more tedious. It's also always easier the second time you take that route with the kids because you saw what worked or didn't the first time and are more confident and prepared about the return trip based on your first experience. I should also say I have a really great internal clock. I always know what time it is (without wearing a watch or having a nearby clock) down to within 5-10 minutes of the actual time. Nevertheless, even I have the sense that the trip going is usually longer than the trip coming home.
LMAO! The length of the trip expands in direct proportion to the number of surly children in the car, no doubt! It increases exponentially with crying infants!
Well, the fact is the return trip never takes as long in my experience. My parents live 764 miles away from me. Whenever I drive down to see them the time it takes is close to 15 hours, but on my trip home the drive takes me 13-14 hours. Don't know why this is, it just is. This is based on more than a half dozen trips in all kinds of weather at different times of the year. ALWAYS shorter time frame when coming home.
Time is all relative. I swear at work, the clocks are in a time warp because minutes will feel like hours, but as soon as I get off work at 5:00 and head home, time flies. I don't despise my job, but I also don't relish in being at my desk all day. I'm sure this same feeling can be applied when I want to get to a desired destination and it feels like it's taking forever, but the return home feels like a blip in time.
This is so obvious! Why did we even need this studied?
I used to make the same trip between Des Moines and Chicago frequently. The route was familiar both ways. Yet the return trip always seemed shorter. I believe it was because landmarks on the return trip said "you're getting closer to home." This in spite of the fact that the outbound trip was to visit my parents in the home I'd grown up in, too.
I too feel the return time seems to be shorter, I associate this feeling to sort of thinking i"m nearly home; as I get closer the feeling intensify.
I'm a truck driver and I am sick to DEATH of driving! The return trip always seems longer because you want to get home! I'm one of the "lucky" ones-I stay in the southeast all the time, not over the road clear up to Washington state for example, as I drive from Atlanta, GA, to Jackson, MS, three times per week.
In a truck the trip takes about 8 hours of actual driving time, not counting the longer time it takes to get in and out of truck stops as opposed to regular gas stations at breaks. To me it seems as if it takes at least TEN. I am sure this is excruciating boredom as we get to know almost every mile of our routes by name, as it were.
I am sick, sick, sick of having my bones vibrated by 400 horses and bad asphalt hour after hour, I am sick, sick, sick, of being away from my 9-year old son most nights, I am sick, sick, sick of being subject to working up to 70 hours every 8 days by my bosses because they CAN according to federal law, I am sick, sick, sick of not being able to plan doctor's appointments, etc. because I never know when I will be "delayed," I am sick, sick, sick of working nights and weekends without fail, I am sick, sick, sick of eating horrible road food and getting fatter all the time because they run us to death until we become so hungry we can't say 'no' to bad food (and, just trust me, it's nearly impossible to carry a cooler and convince convenience stores to let you fill it without buying a whole bag of ice which you don't need...)
Did I tell you I'm sick of driving? Tell your legislator to reduce our hours of service! It will make the roads safer and automatically open up about 2 million driving jobs in this tough economy-people can be trained! ( Yes, it is difficult to be grateful for this job in these tough times because a body can only take so much of anything and I've been doing this for 21 years! )
i've never given any thought this non-issue pseudo-phenomenon, and i'm not about to start...ever.
folks: just try to enjoy your trips and stop psyching yourselves out!
Yeah, the return trip usually always seems shorter, even when I go on bike rides. Sometimes I go on a 18 mile ride to Bristol, and when I travel those same 18 miles back, it feels shorter. I tend to be an introspective person, so from my experience, the reason why the return trip is shorter is because you are more relaxed. You go somewhere to get something done, work, or whatever. On a bike ride, you aren't warmed up yet until a bit into the ride and it's usually more enjoyable on the way back when your body is completely ready for it. I think it has to do with a stress free relaxness. Usually the trip feels like less time because I'm going HOME. When you are constantly thinking about something (work) you are being conscious of time, but when you aren't, you are relaxed and you aren't looking at your watch every two seconds. Familiarity can be a cause also, because you aren't always looking at this and that landmark, you know the landmarks on your way back. Anytime you split up time by thought, you make time go by slower, but when you think less, or are more relaxed, time goes by faster. It's the same thing as having fun for 5 minutes or starting at a wall for 5 minutes. The latter feels like an eternity.
EVERYBODY: get a life OR psychotherapy.
Does flying home mean you are flying Eastbound or Westbound? Eastbound takes longer, Westbound the opposite.
It is for this reason I make every trip a route...try not to return the same way...