It’s been over a decade since American psychologists Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich concluded that doing things makes people happier than having things. “To Do or to Have? That Is the Question” was the title of the study they published in 2003, and it’s been cited hundreds of times since.
Many people now recognize that spending money on, say, a plane ticket for a vacation is more satisfying in the long run than purchasing a new television for the same price. But happiness studies keep evolving, and social scientists continue to find new ways of understanding precisely how our economic choices affect well-being.
A new paper, this one also co-authored by Thomas Gilovich, hones in on another difference between experiential and material purchases: how people feel before they make these purchases, when they’re simply entertaining thoughts of booking flights to the Caribbean or going to the movies, or thinking about shopping for clothing or jewelry. Gilovich and his colleagues asked subjects to think about either an experiential or material purchase they were planning on making very soon, evaluate whether their anticipation made them feel excited or impatient, and rate the overall pleasantness of the anticipation.
Gilovich said one reason the research is important to society is that it “suggests that overall well-being can be advanced by providing an infrastructure that affords experiences—such as parks, trails, beaches—as much as it does material consumption.”
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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I agree with the main premise of the linked article, but in today’s work world, it is truly difficult to get in a position to really avail oneself the opportunity to get these experiences, let alone be able to afford them. I am speaking not just of my own experience, but also that of many others I know. I guess if you can be happy just going to the park every now and then, it’s ok, but if you really would like to say, hike the Atacama Desert, and are slogging through the weeks just to pay the bills (even with low overhead) then there really isn’t much to look forward to in excitement.