Returning to Reality

Returning to reality after a long trip is tough. Maybe as tough as leaving in the first place. The money has gone, you've got to find work, struggle with a commute while your mind is still on the top of a mountain or lazying in a favourite hammock on a tropical beach.

Did you get depressed? for how long?

How difficult was finding work? did you end up back in the same job? or did you take a career change?

Did your perceptions of what is reality change?

Anyone wish they'd never gone and kept the pandora's box of travel closed? Reply to this

There's certainly a tough period of adjustment once the trip's through. Maybe you don't feel entirely comfortable in your old life. Maybe you feel TOO comfortable in your old life (the most terrifying thought, no?). Maybe you just can't come to terms with the fact that while you've embarked on this amazing voyage, things at home - even after six months, a year - hardly seem to have changed. I was actually happy to be home after my last trip. Seven months on the road had taken quite a bit out of me, and it was nice to get back to lying on the couch with my girlfriend, having coffee with friends, not scribbling my name and room number on all of my groceries, etc. Still, it only took a couple of weeks for me to get the itch again. Four months later I was back on the road, and I'm about six weeks into what should be a year-long trip.

I don't think anyone should regret how their travels have affected them. Instead, you should use them to change the way you live your life. True, it's often easier said than done, but think of all the people trudging through their daily grinds without any clue about the wonderful world around them. Would you REALLY rather be in their shoes? Once you get past the difficult period of adjusting to the post-trip life, you can start saving and planning for the next one.

And Shelby, there's no reason for those sorts of thoughts to even cloud your brow for a second. You're about to have the time of your life. Don't worry about getting home until you're taxi-ing down the runway.


Chris
Travel better. Travel Gator.
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My only big trip was 20 odd years ago, when a pal and I rode our motorbikes to Isreal and back (except he stayed longer, sold his bike and flew home,but we are still best pals) Coming home wasn't a problem except I do remember just wanting to wear the same familier clothes and live out of the panniers even though I was at home. It is really the clutter free exsistance that I tried to hang on too. Fast forward 20 years we are about to embark on a family adventure, for 5 months with 11yr old daughter and 4 yr old son (India Australia, Fiji California). But they are my reality, so its not going forward or back, just carrying on. Deep down though I think I yearn for that clutter free existence again, but having to keep track of the business and mortgages I leave behind means coming back will probably mean hitting the floor running. The advantage is my work (outdoor instructor) and my wifes work (singer) is something we love doing and we live in an incredibly beautiful part of the world which regularly gets blogged on this site, so coming back will be easy. Most of all will mean coming home. I recently finished a Masters degree and my dissertation study was on a sense of place, my reserach proving that you get more of a sense of a place the longer you stay there (not rocket science really) I am reminded of a rather corny song lyric from the waterboys " I travelled around the world for years, you just stayed in your room, I saw the crescent, but you saw the whole of the moon." Which I guess means It doesn't really matter where you are but its what you make of where you are, travelling or not, and for us with families, its also who you are with. Reply to this

I miss the travelling experience and the writing about my adventures and feelings whilst travelling....I must admit the return to working was quite hard and I am still to settle into something that I want to do. I feel it has changed me on a work level as well. I have discovered a love for photography and recently bought a DSLR, The joy of meeting people and not knowing what today or the next will bring is something that is so hard to replicate at home. I am just looking forward to going away again and the new experiences that come with it...until next September head down and save those pennies!!!


I would never have changed what I have done it has changed my life for the better and given me a outlook that no amount of work or short holidays can ever match.

I have met people that will be friends forever Reply to this

I have been back about a month now from my latest trip and to be really honest with myself I have been frustrated and somewhat depressed. I was really happy to be home around the easy and familiar. That lasted about a week from this last trip, then the depression set in: nothing at home had changed, but I had changed significantly (I think, I hope). My expectations of the small miracles and discoveries every day can hold have changed. My expectations of what I can achieve, what I want to achieve and what I think I should be trying to impact have changed. In short I expect a hell of a lot more out of living. I don't want to waste a single moment I have been given yet I find most of my friends are content with going to the movies or the mall. I took a friend rock climbing two weeks ago and I have yet to hear back from her. I know to my friends I seem a little intense. Too outside the box.

I know in part this will pass as it always does. It is part of the re-entry process, but there is a part of me that wonders "If I take the new, possibly great, job and re-enter the YUPPIE world I left, have I missed my one life defining chance to radically change my life. To take the big leap or have I sold out?" Like msg#4, should I change my reality or maybe move it somewhere else? I guess we will see.

By the way, I have never regretted any of my trips.

On the job front: My first big world trip in 1994, which was a gap year long before there was a term for it other than failing to get a job out of college, continues to open job opportunities for me. I would have never had the opportunities I have had with out that experience. This latest trip just got me an interview for later this week, you just have to know how to sell it. I work in the international field so it is fairly easy for me to do that. When I compete with people selling themselves as international experts in Washington DC who spent one semester overseas in college it’s not even a discussion. But if you work in a different field you can sell it as Problem Solving: use an example of a difficult situation you resolved on your trip (we all know you had them). People Skills: Communicating with people from different cultures and languages can be difficult. If you can communicate with them you should be great with your new co-workers or subordinates. Did you take a leadership role in a situation on your trip? Did you calm a group down in some sort of argument at the border etc and resolve the situation? We all know that big trips take these kinds of skills. If you didn't have them than you probably came home early because the rickshaw driver stole all your money or you got arrested on the border when your visa was a few days over. So that being said now you just have to help your new employer understand what these skills are. With more and more people traveling on these kinds of trips it should become easier.

This website is the greatest ever in bringing up topics like this! Reply to this

As Tannis mentioned above, you don't have to be away for a long time to feel that unsettling change of pace when you return home. I have never been away for more than five weeks straight, but it is plenty of time to nicely uproot yourself and create a new set of habits and routines. Coming back home, it is comfortable to be back in your own home and be able to stow away the things you've been carrying around day after day. Then suddenly it feels like somehow I put away my very soul into that same cupboard.

Right now I am trying to recover from two glorious weeks in the Himalayas, and I arrived back at the worst possible season of the year, the dark and rainy autumn, piles of work waiting in my inbox. After the first day of eager questions from friends, family and co-workers you are supposed to be amalgamated back into society again. Yet every time it seems to take longer and longer. People laugh and shiver when I tell them of the spartan diet on rice and potatoes, but when I see the large steaks with creamy sauce laid before me at the lunch restaurant I lose my own appetite.

Every time I return from the madness that is Asia I find it harder and harder to adapt to our orderly and structured life, and with one foot in each camp I guess it is normal to feel confused and frustrated. Still, I will continue to travel as often as I can, simply because there is no alternative. It is in my blood now. Reply to this

It's so good to read all the above comments as I have been trying to pull myself out of my post-travel blues and in doing so found myself searching the net for like-minded individuals who can shed some light and give voice to the common down side to life after travelling. Needless to say the positive viewpoints and techniques for focusing and moving on when home has given me inspriation and hope that this snipet of depression will lift. As I travelled independantly for the best part of 9 months returning not only to a structured home routine, working and studying, finding my place socially amongst friends and society has been difficult as my amazing, life-changing experience only existed in my 'reality' and not their's. The way I see things is that I discovered, and was exposed to the biggest, most precious secret, an insight to life outside conformity, social expections and preconceptions. It's not that I am depressed on a whole, far from it, it's just that now I know whats out there it's a struggle to adjust to the daily grind. Now I have so many photographs of breath-taking sunsets and sunrises surrounding me that whenever I feel down my connection to my experience was the sky and I just have to look up to the clouds to remember and keep my dreams, my adventures alive. Time to plan the next big trip I think.......... Reply to this

This question of returning to reality is a real issue I have with travelers.

Why is it that once we return home (that place where so many people feel the good life needs to end) we stop doing the very thing that made us feel good the day before?

Why can’t we live that adventuresome, daring, alter ego life that we had on the road at home? What prevents us from exploring in our own backyard? The people I admire the most have found ways of living in “reality” while enjoying the good life.

Get out and travel while you can and when you need to return home to recharge the batteries or the bank account continue living in the moment. A Kiwi cheers to you!
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I travelled for around a year and was afraid of depression upon my return. Truth is, Ive been back 4 months now and am having the time of my life. I think some travel because they are frustrated with the life they are leading at home. If running away is the motivation for travel then returning home can be depressing. I was just so glad to return to my old friends and have the chance to establish and maintain real and meaningful relationships once again. This being said I am planning a move to the Middle East for next fall. Meh, I guess the bug is in me. Reply to this

I returned a little early from an overseas trip this year ... and definitely had the post travel blues. Your old street, old friends, old job, same old everything just does not sit well after roaming through Transylvania, sipping Schnapps in Austria, skiiing the slopes in Italy and throwing money in the slot machines in Vegas.

Not surprisingly within two months ... I was off again!
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