The Bittersweetness of Coming Home after Travelling

It's funny, when you travel you don't really get homesick - or at least that's the case for me. I do obviously miss my friends and family, but when you're out there seeing the world, other thoughts take over your mind. When it's time to head back home home, it's a comforting feeling knowing that you can hug and squeeze your loved ones again and have a normal face to face conversation without worrying about buffering network connections or timezones.

For me, coming home is hard. In my experience, it's like going back in time to an older place in your life where absolutely nothing has changed and it's exactly the way you left it. As if all the travelling you've done has been a dream and you imagined the whole thing. It's a strange feeling especially when you've gone from being surrounded by other travellers sharing your experiences to going back to how things used to be at home and missing that. You love your friends, but they haven't experienced what you have. It's different.

After you've been home for a while you start to settle and become the person who you used to be. The adventures you had only exist in your memories and the connections you made while travelling begin to fade. It's like you reduce yourself to the older you and fit back into that box you came out of.

And then you get comfortable.

For some people, that will be it and they will continue to live their life the way they had planned before. For the rest of us, we find ourselves dreaming of our next adventure.

As I write this, I am visiting England to see my friends and family, and because it's my mum's 50th birthday. But as I'm living in Australia now, I booked a return flight and I know I'll be heading back out.

I've already been home for 5 weeks and I can admit I've gotten comfortable. The thought of taking another long haul flight back out to the other side of the world makes my stomach turn and I'll be honest, I'm going to miss my family all over again like I did when I first left home. How do you feel about coming home from travelling?

I was speaking to one of my friends about coming home after travelling and used this analogy:

When you need to get in the shower, you don't want to but you do it anyway and then it's fine. When you're already in the shower and you need to get out, you don't want to do that either.

The thing is with life, you can't live it trying to be comfortable all the time. A comfort zone is a beautiful thing, but nothing ever grows there. Each time I get on an airplane by myself, the fear diminishes less and less. This is real growth. This is me becoming a better version of myself.

I want to help you step out of your comfort zone and take a leap to do something you've always wanted to do. Whether it's something small like starting a new sport or booking a one way ticket to the other side of the world, I want to leave you with one thought: How would you feel if you got to 90 years old and realised all those missed opportunities that passed by because you were too scared to grab life by the balls?

Get in touch with me today and let me help you start truly living.