Roles of travel and leisure in quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, our indoor and outdoor leisure activities have profoundly changed. However, research on the way people negotiate leisure motivations with constraints and the relationship between leisure and quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic is scant. On the basis of in-depth interviews with 32 residents in South Korea in 2020, this study reveals that they proactively overcome leisure constraints; their leisure activities are not reduced but slightly modified (e.g. watching baseball games online vs. at a ballpark) or even increased (e.g. camping). When people articulate quality of life during the pandemic, work, health, and family are more salient themes than leisure and travel. Such finding is incongruent with previous research emphasising the importance of leisure and vacations in the quality of life. This study extends the model of leisure constraints negotiation to the context of a pandemic and advances our understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of the quality of life.