A hard truth about travelling – what nobody tells you
Travelling is one of the greatest joys of life. It fills your heart with experiences, it shows you the beauty of the world over and over again and in the end, it´s exactly those moments which make life worth living. You should travel as much as you can and as often as you can. You should take any opportunity to go out and explore more of this beautiful world we live in. Buying a plane ticket is the best way to spend your money and you will not only go on a physical journey, but as well get to know yourself better. But next to all the positive that comes with it, there is also a hard truth about travelling.
Let me explain it better.
Travelling first it leaves you speechless, then it turns you into a storyteller.
You´ll never feel completely home
There definitely is a price to pay if you decide to start travelling and explore different places all over the world. The price is that your heart will start to feel home in more than one place. You will never feel home completely again. Part of you will always be elsewhere. You will feel a connection to different places. You have memories from all over the world, you meet people from different parts of the planet and you will learn that there is more than one place to feel at home.
On one hand, this is an incredibly beautiful feeling to experience. And on the other hand, you will aways feel incomplete. You will always miss a part of you.
You´re always torn between different places
What place actually is home? Where do you want to set your base and how are you going to deal with the constant urge of coming back to a specific place? Another hard truth about travelling is that you are always torn between different places. Each place you travel to is going to influence you. You will feel a connection to more than one place and sometimes, it may be hard to never really know where you truly belong.
It is a blessing and a burden at the same time to have more than one place that you feel connected to. It is a blessing to have different places that made you who you are. And it is a burden to know that you cannot be in more than one place at a time.
Getting back to your normal life can feel depressive
I guess everyone who at least has travelled long-term once in their life knows the feeling of coming back home. No one actually talks about that period though. Most of the time, it´s only about the pleasure travelling adds to your life and the highs you will experience while being on the road. But there is always a coming home. It might be the time after your year abroad, your semester abroad or simply after a couple of months of travelling. The time afterwards always feels like a rollercoaster. At first, you´re excited to see all your loved ones again, to be back home. But after a while, you will notice that time seemed to have stood still while you´ve been gone. At the same time, you´ve made a major progress and it simply does not feel right. You have to adapt to your old habits, you will feel like stepping back after making progress.
It really is a weird phase which can lead to depressing thoughts. It is therefore important to be aware that this awaits before you even return home. Make sure to set up a plan which will keep you from falling into a dark hole.
It might impact your friendships at home
Another hard truth about travelling is that it might have an impact on some of your friendships with the people from home. Of course, the real ones will always stay. And yet, there is something important about this topic.
As travelling is going to change you in many ways, you might distance yourself from people at home. You might not share the same interests anymore and the topics to talk about might vary. You have new areas of your life you want to focus on and are at a completely different mindset than those friends who never really left home.
After travelling, you will get a new perspective on life. You might see things differently and it has broadened your horizons. Maybe you have outgrown some places and some circles of friends at home afterwards. Be wise enough to recognize that.
Should that keep you from travelling?
To sum it up: there is a downside of travelling which no one really talks about. And yes, there is a hard truth about travelling which should be mentioned more often. The way, it changes you and the obstacles you may face when you really dedicate your life to travelling and exploring. Yet, this should never ever keep you from travelling. It should simply shed more light into this part of being a nomad, and to make it clear what it means to always be on the go.
There is no way to make this easier or to never feel homesick, no matter where you are. There also is no real way to avoid feeling depressed after returning home from a longer trip. But in the end, it should simply motivate you even more to make all of those experiences. To take it all in and to feel any emotion that comes with it. Because after all, that is exactly what life is about. And travelling is no different from it.
Click here to reveal the biggest myth about travelling.
