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The purpose of this paper is to outline new directions for tourist well-being research, through theoretical lenses of positive psychology. Positive psychology, a psychological study of what makes life worth living, is gaining recognition within tourism studies (Filep, 2016). Recently, Nawijn (2016) critiqued positive psychological work in tourism on two accounts. The first point of critique was that the use of positive psychological concepts focused only on hedonic tourism contexts, where positive emotions, like joy or contentment, are experienced. The second point of critique was the overestimation of potential effects of vacationing on subjective well-being. Filep (2016) responded to these critiques by arguing against both accounts. Regarding Nawijn’s (2016) first point of critique, Filep (2016) highlighted the presence of works on the topic of eudaimonic tourist experiences, characterized by hardship and challenge (Matteucci & Filep, 2015; Voigt, Howat, & Brown, 2010) as opposed to hedonic tourist experiences. Filep (2016) clarified that the happiness framework of Filep and Deery (2010)(where tourist happiness is understood in terms of positive emotions, engagement and meaning) did not argue that all three aspects of happiness would have to be experienced simultaneously, thus allowing for negative emotions to be experienced in order to achieve tourist happiness. In terms of Nawijn’s (2016) second point of critique, Filep (2016) argued that we do not know yet whether engagement in diverse tourism activities leads to higher well-being in the long term, if well-being is not interpreted in strictly hedonic terms.

Taking these recent critical discussions into …