To travel the world, all you need is a set of speakers or a pair of headphones. Bells in a Sri Lankan temple, pigeons in Milan’s Piazza del Duomo, the Atlantic Ocean impacting and spraying over the rocks of a Cornish beach. Sound has the power to immerse, surround and transport us.

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The Radiophonic Travel Agency uses sound to enable listeners to explore the whole recorded world from the safety and comfort of their home. The sound of rain on a tent takes us on a camping holiday in the UK, multiple live performances booming and blending together and we’re between stages at a music festival. If we hear trees creaking in the wind and leaves underfoot we sink into the depths of a forest. But we might also want to hear inside a museum, or behind someone else’s sofa.

There are health benefits to ‘mind-wandering’. Research has found that "the sound of gurgling streams and soft breezes can stabilise the blood pressure and heart rate of patients on the operating table, while terminally ill cancer patients have reported feeling less discomfort and anxiety if nature sounds are played at their bedside." 

 

Nostalgia can also be beneficial for people with dementia as research suggests "this emotion lends participants the fortitude to face the threat posed by their illness". The Radiophonic Travel Agency would eventually like to offer these people virtual travel to clearly remembered and felt times in their lives.