How life experiences shape travel behaviour: biographical insights from ageing China

This study examines how life experiences shape senior travel behaviour through a life-course lens. Drawing on timeline-assisted biographical interviews with 23 seniors in Guangdong, China, research shows that later-life travel behaviour reflects the interplay of personal life events, macro-level social change, and the cumulative effects of earlier travel experiences. Trajectories are non-linear: critical transitions and socio-historical contexts reconfigure motivations and capabilities, while accumulated experiences continually recalibrate preferences and expectations. On this basis we propose an integrative process model linking structural forces and lived experience to dynamic engagement with travel. The model specifies a mediating mechanism of biographical internalisation and a feedback loop whereby experience-driven preference change shapes subsequent behaviour.