Coming home, it can seem like there’s nothing to look forward to in the conceivable future. Here’s how to shift your perspective.
The dreaded homecoming hangover.
Every time I get settled into my seat for the long plane ride home after a trip, it hits me: the homecoming hangover.
Somewhere between sitting down and taxiing the runway, I find my mood uncontrollably oscillating between anger and sadness.
Heading back from my first trip to Europe, I wept like a child. The next time? I drank myself silly.
Nowadays, I usually just glare into space, or, if I’m feeling particularly constructive, I’ll journal a little. Coming home, it seems like there’s nothing to look forward to in the conceivable future.
I’m not alone in experiencing this phenomenon. Almost every traveler has had at least one pretty severe bout with what seems to be reverse culture shock.
If you don’t address the problem quickly after your return, the apathy or aggression you feel toward your home (and your life) can easily become a serious form of real depression that can last for months.
Before you call a shrink or decide to get on meds, let’s take a moment to think about this post-travel condition and what it really means.
Back to the Grind
We have to remember that it’s these day-to-day mundane activities that make travel so invigorating and exciting.
After an extended stay in another country where you are constantly surrounded by the excitement of new and exotic things, it’s only natural to experience a let down when you hit the pavement back home.
This is home turf – you know how to get around, it may seem there aren’t many surprises left, and the fact that you understand the language and customs makes it that more difficult to tolerate social situations when people act rude or inconsiderate.
You have a routine that involves work or school, cooking and cleaning, and other, generally less-than-life-altering tasks requiring your immediate and often undivided attention.
Routine is sometimes boring and annoying. But it’s an unchanging facet of life, and we have to force ourselves to remember that it’s these day-to-day mundane activities that make travel so invigorating and exciting.
If you took a different trip every month, travel itself would become something of a chore, trading its luster and allure for the crinkled brow and glassy eyes you might associate with a three-hour board meeting.
In fact, if you traveled all the time, you would likely find yourself wishing for home on a much more regular basis.
Be Grateful!
While it’s difficult to remember when you’re fighting for your luggage in baggage claim, every chance you get to travel is special. Scratch that, it’s sacred.
Photo by Jynmeyer
Think about how many times you’ve had to defend your drive to travel against the more “traditional” desires of those around you, whether it’s parents, family, friends, or significant others.
Shouldn’t you pursue a more expensive car, buy a house, get married and have children? (Not that these things preclude travel, but they often don’t mix well, either.)
Remember, not many people manage to scrape together the gumption and cash to experience travel and appreciate foreign cultures.
In our politically-charged world, travel is becoming an even more important tool of mutual understanding. Throughout history, borders open and close subject to the will of leaders we can’t control. Don’t take your freedom to roam wherever you want for granted.
The Gift of Travel
Travel is a gift. So instead of dwelling on the fact that you can’t go as often as you like – and let’s face it, who can?-focus on how lucky you are to understand the value inherent in leaving your country for another one.
You may make the commitment to consider the perks of living in your home country, and resolve to learn more about your city in the downtime between your trips.
There are a million ways you can fill your time and avoid the homecoming hangover – scrapbooking, socializing, planning a new trip – but it may be better to work on changing your frame of mind altogether.
It’s unlikely you’ll ever feel as elated coming home as you do when your plane hits the runway in say, Barcelona, but you can channel that depressed feeling into renewed energy.
What’s your advice for appreciating home after a trip? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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I hear you. I wrote about this when I came home on my blog (click on my name to be link over) and being home has been tough. I feel as though I haven’t moved forward at all while home. That I’m right back the day before my trip and nothing has changed. But it has. I have. I think that you give some good advice, especially about realizing home is home and you need to get back into the grind to minimize the travel hangover. in fact, i was excited to be home at first. I was busy catching up with everyone but when that died down, I realized I had moved on.
I think the hardest part is coming home and realizing that you are not home. I got burnt out by 18 months on the road and was eagerly awaiting to board that flight to Boston but after a few weeks, I realized it wasn’t home but a place that held my friends and family. Home was else.
But I digress. I think the thing to do to beat the hangover is really take what you’ve learned away and apply it to new things. If you fall back into the same old routine (and I have a bit), you waste all those experiences and all that wisdom you gained.
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Excellent artcile and comments. Seems the longer you are away the larger the hangover (rather fits with the drinking analogy).My trick is to have something completely different on the homefront in the works. After 3 months in Australia it was a new job, after 5 months sailing the Sea of Cortez , the need to care for a sick parent (not in the plans…but boy, do 4 hour chemo sessions get you out of your own selfish longings for those awsome street vendor tacos in La Paz)…this last time, a move to the beautiful place I now call home. But even with those mechanisms, I find a time released hangover creep in every so often. Hits when I’m writing about the adventures, missing the buzz of a holiday romance, or just realizing that most of the folks around me don’t have a passport and don’t really want one. Guess using the Tao in day to day workings of life in the States is the best way to handle those mental wanderings.
And of course there is the trip at Christmas in the Florida Keys on the calendar, tracing Hemingway’s haunts and looking for 6 toed cats.
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Nice article! Well, we all go through this, Back to home blues as I would call it. I try arriving back on a Friday or a Saturday, so that I have a day or two before I get back to the Grind.
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Fair article. I like to read some of the deeper issues at play for both individuals and society at large. You hit on a few of them.
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Hmm…I’m struggling with this now, but I agree with Matt’s perspective and suggestions. I think the best way for me to get over the fact that 20 months of RTW travel is over is to apply what I’ve learned toward a change in career. Hopefully I’ll find a job with a liberal vacation policy!
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