Coming home blues

Last week I arrived back in cold wintry Ireland after 4 fabulous months travelling in South America. I thought I would be really happy to get back home to my family in the run-up to Christmas but I actually feel really low. I miss my friends that I met on my travels and long to be back out there with them. Is this normal?

I am currently unemployed and the thought of getting a job and just settling down here again is extremely unattractive at the moment. What I really want to do is get straight back on a plane to Buenos Aires and live and get a job there but again I dont know if Im thinking rationally or simply being silly and nostalgic over the great times that I had there.

Anyone else have similar experiences when they come home?

We've been back almost 3 weeks from a 3-week trip to southern Africa, and we're still not over the post-trip blues. We went with a group, and I miss them all and the bus rides and the excitement and the brand-new things we say ever day. It's also snowing and cold here, which doesn't help.

I know how you feel! I wish I was back there, still travelling around... I find myself daydreaming of selling everything and getting back on the plane...

I have been back for just over a year from my year in Africa...and still not over it! I returned in October to no job or anything, it was all so unbearable I nipped off to Barcelona for a few days which helped. I then did some temp work to get me by but the prospect of Christmas in UK was just too much, so I scraped together what funds I had left and booked myself on a flight for Madagascar and came back in January.
It didn't get any easier and I started to wonder where my future lay. But I got lucky and landed myself a job which I love but never thought of myself doing (health care). Its rubbish money but I work a wonderful shift system which allows me a few days a month to get away plus the opportunity to do as much ovdertime as I like to pay for it. I go away every month, just to Europe, but it is still travelling. I have persuaded my bosses to give me five weeks off for my birthday next year and I am off to Indonesia.
I do still yearn to go away for months on end, but it all has to be paid for. One day I know I will do it, when the time is right. But at the moment, my little mini trips keep me sane.
So yes, you are perfectly normal and there are thousands of others out there who feel the same way. But look to the future, decide on what you really want. Is it feasable to get a job in Buenos Aires? Or will you eventually feel that it is just as hum drum as back in the UK? Or would you like to broaden your horizons and visit another country? A host of other countries. The world is your oyster and all that!

Don't get down...get planning!

[ Edit: Edited on Dec 12, 2008, at 12:37 PM by baluba ]

St John's Wort is a help.

I think we probably all get the same-same after a great trip.
Most times I find that flying back into WA after a short holiday (2-3 weeks) can be a bit depressing, especially when I've been lotus-eating on some small Indonesian island and I'm flying back to a Perth winter.
My antidote - I'm always planning my next trip on the plane as I'm flying home

I know that feeling.. within a week of coming home from my last (very short) trip I enrolled in a language class, and started madly trying to figure out how to get out of my rut.. it was driving me insane being stuck in the same routine as before, after having the most amazing experiences, so depressing being back.. so I started planning, I wasn't sure what I was planning for at the time, just anything.. but all that reading and talking about traveling led somewhere, and I leave for a year (or more) in Africa in about 5 weeks! So yeah, just start planning something, it'll take your mind off where you are, and eventually it'll happen :D

I know this feeling very well. I grew up in the South of the US, where as liberal as I am, it's a wonder the hillbillies haven't lynched me or burned me at the stake! I spent several amazing years living in Australia and travelling through the South Pacific and Africa, and ironically I felt most at home when I was away from home. But then cashflow became a problem, and here I am in Georgia again, where it is a wonder how I survived a hot summer without once setting foot on a beach and where my beloved sushi is a mission to find.

It's been just over a year now, and I still feel what I guess you could call post-holiday blues. If anything though, it has me motivated to work hard to get together the funds to travel again, right now I'm working 2 jobs though that said they're both in hospitality, which has been hit hard by the recession here. And it also has me motivated to work to get my nurse's license, while I would like to go to medical school eventually nursing is one of the easiest career fields to travel with, and I know after 5 years abroad that travel is an addiction of mine that will never go away, so I might as well be in a career which supports my addiction.

This feeling is normal. Unfortuntately it will never disappear completely.

Gah, After reading this post its making me feel real bad. I come home after nearly 7 great months next tuesday and i've been telling myself its will be nice to see family for Xmas ect. Well, i've been telling myself alot because i would love to stay out here and do so much more. But as always my bank has diffrent idea's on that, so back home save more and put myself into the next big travel plans. Lets hope that saves me !

I dont even want to think about English weather and our world class food. ( Cry )

Leon

Hold on a minute - so you expect to spend 4 months climbing moutains, chilling on beaches, eating great food, meeting cool people and travelling around and not feel low when it's all over?!!! Hee! Seriously, I'm sure everyone goes through the end of travel blues. I find it really tough coming home, but the feelings soon settle once I begin carving my new life out for myself and begin implementing the things in my life I told myself I would whilst I was laying on That Beach. Get into the festive spirit - make yourself some mulled wine, grab some mince pies and sit by the fire with your family and tell them some great stories.

[ Edit: Edited on Dec 16, 2008, at 5:33 AM by claireh ]