Grief: When a Cancelled Trip Feels Like Losing Psychological Oxygen

Sometimes, the losses that affect us most are not the ones the world immediately recognises as grief.

A cancelled journey, a postponed plan, or an experience we had quietly been looking forward to for months can touch something deeper in our nervous system.

This reflection explores why certain places, experiences, and trips can feel like psychological oxygen, and why losing access to them can unexpectedly feel like loss and grief.

Recently, I had to cancel a long-planned trip to Cambodia and Vietnam due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and its ripple effects on travel logistics.

In the grand scheme of things, this clearly falls into the category of what many would call a luxury problem. The world is facing far greater losses and uncertainties.

And yet, if I’m honest, cancelling the trip brought up something that felt remarkably like grief.

This can be a slightly uncomfortable thing to admit out loud.

Because how do you say, “I’m grieving a cancelled trip,” without immediately wanting to add a long list of disclaimers?

And yet the feeling is real.

Living the Trip Before It Happens: The Psychology of Anticipation

One reason the loss feels deeper is that I plan and book my travels myself. I suspect many people who love travel will recognise this pattern.

Months before departure, the journey has already begun.

There are evenings spent researching routes and neighbourhoods. Hours reading about local food, markets, cafés, temples, and landscapes. Maps open on the laptop. Restaurant lists are forming. Camera lenses chosen.

Gradually, the trip starts living in the imagination.

In many ways, the body begins to anticipate it too: the warmth, the sounds, the rhythm of daily life in another place. By the time departure day approaches, the journey has already been lived internally for quite some time.

Cancelling it therefore, isn’t only the loss of future experiences. It is also the loss of something that the mind, emotions, and nervous system have already begun to inhabit.

And on a more personal note, it also robs me of the opportunity to indulge my creative side as an amateur photographer – and with it, the quiet pleasure of reliving the journey for weeks afterwards while sorting and editing photos.

This way, travel becomes the psychological oxygen that you breathe - and when you then lose it, it feels like grief.

The Sensory Landscape of Travel

For some of us, travel is not primarily about ticking off destinations.

It’s about a shift in atmosphere.

The subtle things:

• The freshly squeezed mango juices served on the beach

• The humid air that softens the edges of the day

• The scent of street food drifting through the evening streets

• The clatter of bowls and chopsticks in small cafés

• Early morning markets coming to life

• Scooters humming past

• Tropical rain arriving suddenly and unapologetically

There is a kind of sensory richness that invites the body to relax.

The climate itself changes how one moves through the day. Humidity slows the pace. People gather outside. Life spills onto the streets.

And, then, of course, there is the food.

Fresh herbs, lime, chilli, fragrant broths, grilled meats, bowls of noodles eaten on tiny plastic stools. The kind of meals that make you laugh at yourself for trying to recreate them at home afterwards with ingredients from a Scandinavian supermarket.

There is something about this sensory immersion that makes the body feel more present - more awake to the moment.

A Personal Take on the Different Rhythm of Life

Beyond the sensory pleasures, for me, some places carry a different rhythm altogether.

I simply feel more alive, present, and connected in parts of Southeast Asia. There is often a visible sense of community life unfolding in public spaces: food shared, conversations happening across generations, early (and I mean very early) morning gatherings in town squares for gentle exercising, and spiritual practices woven quietly into everyday routines.

Yes, life can appear fast, colourful, noisy, and intense. For some, this might aggravate stress - for me, it creates a sense of expansion. A feeling that life is happening not only inside private homes and schedules, but out in the open.

And there is something else I often notice there that quietly moves me: a certain simplicity in everyday life, and a visible sense of gratitude for small things.

People gathering for a meal. Sharing food on small plastic stools. Offering fruit or incense at a small shrine. Smiling easily at strangers. Expressing appreciation for simple daily moments.

These small gestures often carry a sense of perspective that I find deeply affirming.

When living in a more structured, productivity-oriented environment, where strangers rarely greet each other in the street, and emotional expression tends to be more restrained, this contrast can feel profoundly nourishing.

In those moments, I often feel myself leaning into a more fluid and open part of who I am. It becomes my psychological oxygen.

Psychological Oxygen: How Places Regulate the Nervous System

From a psychological perspective, environments can play a powerful role in nervous system regulation. Certain places allow us to soften. To breathe more fully. To step out of familiar roles and expectations.

Travel can provide space for:

• creativity

• curiosity

• connection with loved ones

• noticing beauty

• feeling more embodied and alive

In that sense, some places function almost like psychological oxygen.

I noticed how losing access to that, even temporarily, felt surprisingly significant.

The Slightly Forbidden Nature of This Grief

There is another layer that I suspect many people recognise, but rarely say out loud.

Grieving a cancelled trip can feel oddly shame-tinged.

Compared to the very real suffering happening elsewhere in the world, it can seem trivial to acknowledge this kind of loss. We may feel we should simply shrug it off.

Emotional experiences do not organise themselves according to global hierarchies of suffering.

Our nervous systems respond to what matters to us - to the experiences that nourish us, regulate us, and allow us to feel fully alive.

When those experiences disappear unexpectedly, grief can appear, even if we feel slightly embarrassed about it.

In psychological terms, this is sometimes called a disenfranchised or unacknowledged loss: A loss that does not easily fit into socially recognised categories of grief.

Holding Both Realities

Acknowledging this grief does not diminish awareness of the larger world.

Both realities can coexist:

• compassion for global suffering

• and the recognition that certain experiences sustain our own well-being

For many people, and certainly for me, travel is not escapism. It is nourishment, perspective, creativity, and connection.

And sometimes, when circumstances intervene, it simply hurts to lose that.

Even if we feel we ought to laugh at ourselves a little while admitting it.

The Good News About Anticipation

If there is a small consolation in all of this, it is that the anticipation itself was real.

The planning, the imagining, the curiosity: Those experiences already happened.

I remind myself of something important: The capacity for wonder, exploration, and aliveness exists within us all - not only in the places we travel to.

The trip may be postponed.

But the parts of ourselves that long for beauty, flavour, humidity, laughter, and new perspectives are still very much alive.

And hopefully, one day soon, they will find their way back onto an airplane.

Invitation to Reflect

I’d love to hear from you: Have you ever experienced a “small” loss that unexpectedly felt much bigger than you thought it would? Your reflections often bring new insights - and sometimes, just sharing can make the loss feel a little lighter. So, please feel free to leave a comment.