Key Takeaways
- Last year, I stumbled across a number of articles talking about recent findings about the risk gene. Apparently, people who travel a lot are predispos
- I’ve known Kayt for years and she’s one of the best writers I know. She’s someone I look up to and I’m excited to have her write for this website. So,
- When I was in college, an acquaintance, Dave, won a prestigious engineering fellowship. When I congratulated him, he informed me that he was going to
Last year, researchers uncovered compelling links between certain genetic traits and high-risk, exploratory behavior—including frequent travel. The idea that wanderlust might be biologically rooted sparked fascination across the travel community. When Kayt Sullivan, author of The Art of Risk: The Science of Courage, Caution, and Chance, shared insights into this emerging science, we at Route for Less (routeforless.com) knew it was essential reading for curious travelers.
Kayt is an acclaimed science writer whose work bridges rigorous research and accessible storytelling. We’re honored to feature her perspective on how biology intersects with our desire to explore—and why that desire isn’t universal.
When I was in college, an acquaintance, Dave, won a prestigious engineering fellowship. When I congratulated him, he informed me that he was going to refuse it. I was shocked. The fellowship offered him substantial funding for his research plus a year’s stay in Italy.
Why on earth would he refuse such an adventure?
“Why would I want to go to Italy?” he replied when I asked him. “Everything I need is right here in Pittsburgh.”
I don’t think I could have been more shocked if he had told me he was pregnant with kittens. But he was deadly serious. He had been born and raised about an hour’s drive from the city. He came to Pittsburgh for college and then stayed on for graduate school. He went on to tell me that he had never, in his 26 years, set foot outside of the state of Pennsylvania.
And he didn’t feel any sort of compulsion to do so.
I wanted to cry at the thought of him giving up a year in Italy. And, I won’t lie — I actually thought he might be insane.
Ten years later, Dave and I ran into each other again — you guessed it — in Pittsburgh. When he asked me what I had been up to, I started telling him of a recent trip to Colombia, complete with bus misadventures and a person bringing me a live chicken when I offered to make dinner. As I told the story, he looked very uncomfortable.
At first, I couldn’t understand why. Then it dawned on me: he was convinced that I was actually the insane one.
What drives some of us to forsake the comforts of home and explore the world? Is there a scientific explanation for why some of us are slaves to our wanderlust, while others are dead set on staying put?
As it turns out, the answer may lie, at least partially, in our DNA.
When it comes time to take a risk, our brains take in all kinds of information about rewards, emotion, stress, potential consequences, previous experience, and other factors and put it all together to help us decide whether to take a leap — or stay put. That’s whether we’re going after some tasty food, chasing a potential mate, or traveling to exotic locales.
And the brain regions that process all those factors are fueled, in part, by a special chemical called dopamine. You may have heard of dopamine before. Some call it the “pleasure” chemical. And certainly, we all get big hits of it when we get a taste of something good (literally or figuratively). Scientists have found that having lots of dopamine in certain parts of the brain can lead to more impulsive, risky behaviors. And some people have all that extra dopamine because they possess a specific variant of the DRD4 gene, a gene that codes for a single type of dopamine receptor, called the 7R+ allele.
Numerous studies have linked the 7R+ variant to a wide range of behaviors. People with this variant are much more likely to make a financial gamble in hopes of a bigger payout. They are more likely to have a greater number of sexual partners — and participate in one-night stands, too. They are more likely to become addicted to drugs or alcohol. They even throw caution to the wind when engaged in that nursing home card-game favorite, bridge.
And they may also be more likely to travel to distant lands.
Justin Garcia, an evolutionary biologist at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, says that the DRD4 gene is very important from an evolutionary standpoint. He says its 7R+ variant was likely selected for (i.e., caused greater reproductive success) tens of thousands of years ago as humans started their great migrations out of Africa and into other parts of the world.
Garcia argues that all that extra dopamine in the brain may have helped motivate prehistoric man to venture from home, explore, and seek new territories for mates, food, and shelter.
To venture from home. To seek new territories. To explore.
So could something like a simple DRD4 variant explain wanderlust? Or clarify why I see travel as an opportunity while someone like Dave views it as a terrible risk?
Though biology never works alone (environmental factors can tweak our genes in wild and wonderful ways, too), Garcia says that DRD4 may explain some of these differences. His work looks at the 7R+ allele and how risky behaviors may express themselves in different situations, and he’s found that it is linked to people wanting to push the envelope in interesting ways.
