Do High Expectations Ruin Travel?

Yes! Well, sometimes. It depends.

For the audio version of this article, read by the author, go here.

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Two years ago, Brent and I visited Amsterdam, Netherlands, for the first time. We were both excited to finally see one of Europe’s most famous cities.

In other words, our expectations were very high. Those famous canals and the “dancing” houses? Anne Frank’s house? The Van Gogh Museum?

Could our visit to Amsterdam ever live up to this? (Photo, right, by redcharlie on Unsplash)

Alas, we both ended up pretty disappointed.

Sure, we liked the canals, and the skinny Dutch houses, and the stroopwafels. And to be fair, it was November, so it was chilly, wet, and gloomy.

But the crowds were insane, and the price of almost everything was through the roof. We stayed in, hands-down, the worst hotel we’ve had in over a decade — and it was over $200 USD a night.

We just didn’t think Amsterdam was all that.

After Amsterdam, we visited a friend in Antwerp, Belgium. We had zero expectations of that city.

And we loved it!

We were truly amazed by how much we liked Antwerp!

Was that because we had no idea what to expect of Antwerp? And did Amsterdam disappoint because our expectations were so high?

Most people would probably answer, “Well, duh.” The higher our expectations of, well, anything, the higher the chance for disappointment.

But is this necessarily true? We had very high expectations for Prague and Bangkok too, but we loved both cities.

Research has long shown that our expectations of upcoming events massively shape our perception of those events.

There’s also extensive research on how travelers develop high expectations, how they react to disappointing experiences, and how tourist operators can manage those expectations.

When it comes specifically to travel destinations, I decided to conduct some of my own research.

On myself!

Arriving in Hamburg, Germany, with no expectations!

Brent and I recently took a cruise around northern Europe. I had high expectations for some ports of call and low or no expectations for others.

Yes, these were just brief cruise ship stops, which means I was dealing with first impressions. My feelings might have changed had I stayed longer. But I still had a good, consistent sample of destinations for my experiment.

Did my expectations impact the actual experience of visiting these destinations?

I’ve detailed my feelings in this handy chart: