Activities and Activity Patterns Involving Travel Abroad while Growing up: The Case of Young Swedes

Abstract

Departing from ongoing discussions concerning the changing role and motive structure of transnational mobility among ordinary people, this article investigates activities and activity patterns motivating travel abroad among a group of Swedish youth. Using retrospective travel data covering the years of childhood and adolescence of 140 individuals, three specific issues are addressed: (a) the extent to which travel abroad has become part of a broad range of activities; (b) the role of travel in relation to school and other organized activities; (c) the occurrence and forms of repetitive travel behaviour. The most important findings concern repetitive travel behaviour: a little less than half of the respondents have highly repetitive travel patterns as regards activity or purpose of travel. Moreover, about two thirds of the repetitive travel patterns are largely or completely dominated by trips to the same country of destination. Many are motivated by visiting relatives abroad but the majority are motivated by leisure activities seemingly unrelated to the spatial configuration of social relationships.