Social + Cultural Psychologist
The places we go change how we think, how we feel, and who we become.
I'm Katie Blake, a psychologist who studies what travel does to us: to our thoughts, our habits, our emotions, and the story we tell about who we are.
The philosophy
"The places we go don't stay behind. They become part of us."
Our psychology comes down to how we think, what we feel, and how we behave. Travel can touch all three at once. A new city unsettles your routines, an unfamiliar language sharpens what you notice, and a landscape can shift your mood before you've had time to name why. My work sits there, in how the places we move through shape our minds and, over time, our sense of self.
Travel Psychology
The places we go shape who we become.
Away from the familiar, we notice things about ourselves that home never asks of us: how we react, what we reach for, who we are when no one knows us. I help travelers plan trips that make room for that, and I help brands tell stories grounded in what travel actually does to people.
Explore travel →The Postcard Société
The people we love are worth the effort.
A correspondence box, with every postcard chosen by hand for the person who receives it. Pack it for your travels or keep it at home, and write to the people you love as often as you like. Our relationships shape who we are as much as our places do, and the postcard has always been where the two meet.
Begin your Portrait →Psychologie
The examined life is worth living.
Essays and field notes on how place affects mood, memory, behavior, and identity, and why we so often come home a little different than we left. Published in The Journal of Travel Psychology and Field Notes, and on Substack for the community there.
Read the Journal →The Podcast
You are where you've been.
The Places We Become is a Travel Psychologie™ podcast exploring how place, culture, and the way we move through the world transform us — one episode at a time.
Listen now →Why this matters
We are shaped by where we've been. Most of us have never stopped to ask how.
Travel is usually talked about as an escape, a reward, or a break from real life. The research tells a different story. Time in unfamiliar places can loosen old habits, stretch how we handle uncertainty, widen our empathy, and change the way we describe ourselves. That isn't a side effect of travel. It's the heart of it.
You might be planning a trip, starting a correspondence practice from the road, or wondering why a place stayed with you long after you left. Either way, my work is here to help you understand that change and carry it home with you.
Pictured: a sampling of postcards.
The Postcard Société
A ritual for the art of correspondence.
The Postcard Société is a correspondence box for writing by hand again — to a friend you've drifted from, a grandparent, someone far away, someone just down the street. How often you write, and to whom, is entirely yours to decide.
It's made to go with you. Small enough to tuck into a carry-on, ready for a café table in a new city — a card a day from the road, to one person or three. Or it can stay home, on the kitchen table, for a slow Sunday morning and a cup of coffee. Wherever you write from, everything you need is already inside.
Every box begins with your Correspondence Portrait — a few questions about how you write, and who you write to. From your answers, I choose your thirteen postcards from independent artists, by hand, for you.
Inside the box
- Thirteen postcards, chosen for you
- A cloth-bound address book
- A beautiful correspondence pen
- Twelve stamps, ready to go
- A linen keepsake box
- A Correspondence Guide, written by a psychologist, on building an analogue practice that actually lasts
From there, you're welcomed into the seasonal sets — a new suite with every equinox and solstice to refill your supply and keep your practice going, each shown to you in full before you decide.
"The difference between a passing intention and a lasting habit is rarely how much you care. It's whether the habit has somewhere to live."From The Postcard Société Correspondence Guide
Where to begin
Three places to start.
Travel, connection, and l'art de vivre — three expressions of the same philosophy. Choose where you'd like to start.
Travel Consulting
Bespoke travel planning and brand collaborations grounded in psychology and a deep love of place — for individuals, couples, and brands who believe where you go shapes who you become.
Explore → 02The Postcard Société
A curated correspondence box designed to help you build one simple, meaningful habit — writing one postcard a week to someone you love.
Shop → 03Psychologie
Essays on how travel changes the way we think, feel, and see ourselves, published on Substack and in The Journal of Travel Psychology. Plus Field Notes, on analogue life and the art of correspondence.
Read →