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Advice for Dealing With Coming Home
By John McAdams Harry Calruno | March 12, 2009
You’ve done it- you have traveled the world and now are home. Pretty awesome huh? You’ll have memories you will keep forever and friends for a lifetime. But now many people wonder what the next step is. After the glow of welcome back parties fades and you tire of telling the same stories, what do you do?
Coming home from traveling around the world is the hardest part. There’s a mixture of emotions: excitement, anxiety, fear, joy, and nervousness. After the honeymoon is over and reality sets in, people are left feeling a little lost. You spent a long time preparing for the road, a long time on the road, and then suddenly, its over. Just like that. Its as though someone slammed on the brakes to your life and, for many people, that can be kind of depressing. Coming home is more about coping mentally than doing anything.
Here are a few ways that can help you cope with those emotions and get yourself moving:
Keep Busy- If you sit around, you are going to be depressed. Even if you are really happy to be back, it still takes some time to adjust back into normal life. The best way to help this adjustment is to stay busy. Get a job, go out, join a gym, pick up a new hobby. Try being a tourist in your own city. You’ve been gone for awhile so something might have changed. Go out and explore your town and it will make you still feel like you are on vacation.
Think of a New Trip- Plan your next trip so you don’t feel like home is the end. Even if you never go on this trip it will help ease your mind and give you a way to mentally distract yourself. You’ll get excited about “going somewhere”. Even if your trip never materializes, at least, it makes coming home feel more like a pit stop and not the finish line.
Go get a Job- Getting a job helps you stay bus. By finding a job, you can take your mind off the adjustment to normal life and make some money. It can give you something else to be excited about and put your energy into. Plus, it will give you money for that new trip you are planning.
Read Blogs- Because if you aren’t traveling, live vicariously through the people who are and get the motivation to start traveling again
Coming home from the road is about adjusting back into the world you left and focusing on taking what you saw and applying it to your daily life. Most long term backpackers end up going again, afflicted by a virus that they can never cure. Others stay home because their voyage taught them that what they wanted the most was what they left behind at home. We all come home eventually and we need to know how to cope with that experience.
Topics: Travel |
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