Introduction

Despite the growing prevalence and variety of mental health ‘problems’ within contemporary societies there has been surprisingly little exploration of the relationship between emotional distress/well-being and tourism experiences. This chapter aims to contribute a feminist perspective to the growing body of research into ‘wellness tourism’ (Smith & Kelly, 2006) through a focus on travel within Australian women’s narratives of recovery from depression. Hence, it builds upon the expanding literature on women travellers (Small, 1999; Tiyce, 2008; Wearing & Wearing, 1996; Wilson & Harris, 2006) by developing closer connections with work in disability studies, leisure studies and mental health (Fullagar, 2008; Fullagar & Brown, 2003; Kleiber et al., 2002; Stoppard, 2000). In particular I consider how meaningful travel experiences figured within women’s stories of moving through depression and renegotiating their sense of self in recovery (Wilson & Harris, 2006). In this way I explore a tension shaping the travel experience between understanding the ‘disabling effects’ of being diagnosed as mentally ‘ill’ as well as the transformative possibilities travel affords women.

In this chapter I argue that the liminal space of travel affords us another way of understanding the relational and multiple nature of women’s identity. Travel involves the movement away from home with its gendered responsibilities and expectations, as well as the movement towards other worlds and possible selves experienced within a relation to difference. In particular I focus on 11 narratives that identified the significance of travel within an Australian Research Council funded qualitative study involving 80 Australian women aged 20–75 who self-identified as recovering from depression. Ten women who identified themselves as travellers or tourists spoke of the embodied longing to move through places that gave them hope, desire and the vitality to escape the weight of depression. In contrast one woman spoke of how travel actually contributed to her depression rather than recovery.