Bradley Riches joins first-of-its-kind travel experiment with Contiki: ‘I saw relaxation in a different way’
Heartstopper’s Bradley Riches enjoyed Contiki’s ‘Italian Escape’ trip. (Supplied)
“I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit of a stressful traveller,” says Heartstopper and Celebrity Big Brother star Bradley Riches.
“I also want to do everything, so those two things don’t always correlate.” When he travels, the 22-year-old actor finds himself anxious about things like whether he’s caught the right bus, or whether he’s going to end up spending hundreds on a taxi if he gets lost. “You just give up with public transport, and you just stay in one area,” he sighs.
This summer, Bradley Riches’ travelling experience changed forever. He participated in a first-of-its-kind travel experiment, led by Contiki, the global tour operator and social travel experts for 18 to 35-year-olds. The star embarked on a sunbaked, six-day “Italian Escape” trip, alongside a group of complete strangers, helmed by trip manager and local expert, Maddie.
As the group hopped across some of Italy’s most desired destinations, including Rome, Naples, the Amalfi Coast, and Capri, Riches’ brain waves were monitored by a “Myndband” he wore, created by neuroscience-technology company Myndplay. The experiment aimed to find out exactly how travelling changed his perspective, and discover which elements of his trip awarded him with potent positive emotions.
“I was apprehensive,” Riches says of how he was feeling before the trip. “I think it’s quite a scary thing to go to a different country when you know no one. I was scared that I wasn’t going to make any friends.” Ahead of his travels, he filled out a Contiki questionnaire, where he explained that he much prefers being around close friends only. Yet immediately after arriving at his first stop with the group in Rome, he found his people.
“We did pasta making in Rome,” he beams. “You make friends with everyone, but I made a close connection with these six people, and we all stood with each other making our pasta.” The Myndband tracked which moments of the trip were filled with “exceptional” joy – all participants experienced on average 12 of those moments a day – and the pasta making session was one such moment.
“It was a lot of fun. That was like a moment of like: ‘Oh wow, I’ve made actual real friends from strangers,’” he remembers. “I think that was the most special thing about the trip.” On coming home, he answered the same question about his friendship group, and said that he “strongly disagrees” that he prefers being around close friends only, and “strongly agrees” that he now enjoys meeting strangers.
Riches’ Myndband tracked when his brain waves peaked in categories including pleasure, zen, engagement, creativity and learning. Out of all of the participants completing the travel experiment, Riches experienced the most peaks when surrounded by his newfound friends.
“They were all just there for one reason, which was just to see the world and have fun and create memories. It’s just good vibes,” he says. Due to his work in the notoriously cut-throat acting world, Riches says he “struggled to trust people” before taking his Contiki trip. That changed. “When I got back, I was like, ‘Oh my God, these strangers… I trusted them with my life.” They still speak regularly on WhatsApp, months on.
Because of how Contiki operates – all travel and accommodation is sorted for you, activities are organised, and local highlights shared by your Trip Manager – Riches feels he simply got to fully switch off.
“You could just relax, and everything is in a package for the trip… I don’t think I stressed once, actually,” Riches shares. It’s a stark contrast to his day-to-day life as an actor, which he says is “always go, go, go”.
Before the trip, he “strongly agreed” that he finds it hard to relax, but while in Italy, “I think I saw relaxation in a different way,” he explains. “Physically, you might be walking around Rome, but mentally, you’re relaxed. You’re taking everything in, and you’re like: ‘Ah, I feel really calm.’”
The Myndband showed that participants in the experiment experienced 18 daily moments of zen, aka complete relaxation, every day; that’s essentially the same mindset achieved by monks during deep meditation. In fact, Riches’ brain waves hit their greatest peaks in moments of zen. He also experienced being in the “zone” every day of the trip, a state of mind featuring peak relaxation, focus, and positivity, whilst also devoid of anxiety and stress.
“You have an amazing Trip Manager, ours was Maddie. She was incredible,” Riches gushes. Always on hand, Maddie told Riches and his group all they needed to know, particularly when it came to food and drink recommendations. “That’s another stress-free thing too,” he says. Maddie would share a list of restaurant and bar recommendations on their trip group chat, “and then you would get to these restaurants and bars with the friends you’ve made, and everyone’s there, so it’s really fun. You just don’t need to be organised, that’s the best thing about it. You can just turn up and away you go, travelling.”
It figures that Riches appreciated Maddie’s culinary knowledge, considering some of his biggest peaks in stimulation came when he was presented with food and drink. In addition to the pasta making in Rome, Riches raves about getting to do pizza making and a street food tour in Naples – which featured Naples’ delicacy and his favourite treat of the trip, the rum-soaked cake babà Napoletano. There was also a tour of a lemon farm in Amalfi, which culminated in watching limoncello being made, and a gorgeous glass of limoncello spritz as the sunset. It’s a pretty impressive amount to pack into just six days.
Riches says the lemon farm trip was one of the most “euphoric” moments of his Contiki experience. However, it was during his group walking tours when his brain waves peaked the most – as did the stimulation of all other participants in the experiment. Riches recalls wandering around the historic world heritage site of Pompeii, including the ancient city’s famed Amphitheatre. The group’s Pompeii guide was “hilarious”, he says, which helped his engagement and pleasure peak, but being able to “learn a lot of knowledge” about the city left him awestruck, too. “It was incredible,” he says, starry-eyed. “Seeing [it] all… it was just mind-blowing.”
Prior to his trip, Riches believed somewhat that intelligence is intrinsic, and difficult to change. Yet post-trip, he “strongly disagreed” with the notion. He learnt that travelling, particularly in a group of people he hadn’t met before, does wonders for the brain.
“Travelling, especially with Contiki, obviously you’ll be learning a lot more about the culture [of the country you visit],” he says. On average, experiment participants experienced 12 learning moments a day. “But also you’re surrounded by people who you may never cross paths with ever, so then you also learn a lot from them, and the way they live and the way they view life.” One of the young women he spent time with had always been told by loved ones never to travel alone, and she’d lost confidence in travelling entirely. Yet the trip, Riches explains, changed that. “Her story was incredible,” he says.
Though his Contiki Italian Escape is over, Riches has got plenty of life-affirming, perspective-shifting memories to look back on. Plus, he’s “100 per cent” planning another Contiki trip: this time, to Thailand.
“Everyone on that trip was talking about going on another one,” he reveals. “It’s been so amazing, such a memorable trip, that they want to go again. Because what’s the point of waiting for people [to travel with] when you can just go and see it yourself?
“It was just a very wholesome experience that I’m still smiling about.”
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