Nothing is more memorable than a smell

smell and memory

Nothing is more memorable than a smell.

One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town.

Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

I’ve known for a long time that olfactory memories are powerful.

I was in boarding school for five of my teenage years. Each school term I’d return from the holidays to a newly allocated dormitory with a fresh new set of toiletries. I wasn’t brand-loyal in those days, so each term would mean a new deodorant scent – whatever the local Co-op supermarket had at the time. For years afterwards, I could catch a whiff of a particular brand of deodorant and I would instantly be transported back to the particular dormitory I was in during the term I used that brand – I would see the faces of the girls I shared the dorm with, and I would hear the most popular songs of that part of that year.

The smell somehow linked all those memories together, ready to be recalled when I next encountered that scent.

Researchers are now making some headway in understanding how this process of connecting smells and memories works. A recent study at the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology’s Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience discovered the process behind this phenomenon by using rats in a maze who were exposed to different smells which ‘told’ them where the food was hidden.

What they found was that the brain “connects smells to memories through an associative process where neural networks are linked through synchronised brain waves of 20-40 Hz”. If you’re interested in the detail behind this study, the findings were published in Nature Journal

I don’t need to understand all the detail of the science to know that the sense of smell is an important part of any travel experience.  Not only does it contribute to your understanding and experience of the place in the present, olfactory encounters can also trigger travel memories for years afterwards (yet another way to maximise your travel happiness).

Here’s a few of my travel smell memories:

The pungent smell of durians?

Durian

Singapore.

I’ve experienced durian in other countries, both to smell and to taste, but it was Singapore where I first encountered these bizarre fruit. Once smelled, the aroma of durian is NEVER forgotten. Called the ‘King of Fruit’, it is often described as tasting like heaven, but smelling like hell…and many hotels in SE Asia have signs expressly banning guests from bringing durian onto the premises.

The smell of Subway sandwiches combined with Cinnabon buns (or cinnamon doughnuts)?

Every outlet shopping mall I’ve ever been in.

For some reason, outlet shopping everywhere smells identical. And it’s a fast-foody-cinnamony smell. After walking several times past the enticing cinnamon smell from the Cinnabon counter in the foodcourt at the famous Woodbury Common Premium Shopping Outlet in the Central Valley of New York, I finally succumbed and tried a Cinnabon roll – warm dough  shaped into a scroll, filled with cinnamon, and topped with a rich cream cheese frosting. Eeeeew. I immediately regretted it.

The fragrant gardenia flower?

The Cook Islands-001
The Cook Islands.

More than 20 years ago, we honeymooned on Raratonga in The Cook Islands, where floral Eis are a cultural feature. I wore one as I reclined by the pool reading books and magazines, and drinking duty-free Kahlua and milk. The milk ended up being as expensive as the Kahlua, but that’s a whole other story… (Interested in finding out more about Cook Island Eis? Check out this great video on how to make an Ei.)

The lightly floral scent of Givenchy’s Organza perfume?

London, 1996.

The perfume was launched while we were on holiday there, and every tube station had billboards showing the distinctive bottle.  I bought a bottle, and wore it every day for years afterwards. But a single whiff still takes me back to London.

The acidic smell of silage?

Rural Scotland.

I must have visited one time in my childhood at a particularly whiffy time of year for silage, as one hint of the smell of silage and I immediately think of Scotland. It’s probably not the most flattering of scent associations.

The heady perfume of burning incense?

Incense sticks

Vietnam.

With most shops and many homes burning incense each morning as part of the daily ritual, there is an aroma of incense that permeates the streets of every city, town and village. On our visit to Hue, we had fun learning how to roll incense sticks ourselves (with mixed results.)

What smells trigger your memories?

 

Nothing is more memorable than a smell
This quote is widely attributed to Rudyard Kipling, but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence to suggest he actually said it or wrote it.

 

This post is linked up to:

Weekend Wanderlust

 

#WeekendWanderlust hosted by A Brit and a SouthernerJustin plus LaurenCarmen’s Travel TripsOutbound Adventurer, and A Southern Gypsy.

#SundayTraveler linkup -on Chasing the DonkeyPack Me To…A Southern Gypsy, The Fairytale Traveler, and Ice Cream and Permafrost.

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