10 ways to keep the travel spirit alive
So you’ve returned home after a big trip, unpacked your stuff, and put away your passport in a drawer. Now what?
Now you’re probably starting to crave some endorphin-pumping adventures again. We know the feeling ̶ you’re hooked on traveling.
But why do we only tend to feel this enthusiastic about places away from home?
For starters, because travel stimulates our brains and spirits the way the familiar can’t. That’s why every return home can be a tricky transition period, and why we have to manage it in the best possible way: by actively keeping our spirits up and carry on doing EPIC SHIT.
But if you’re feeling blue, here are 10 ways to get you out of that post-travel funk:
1. Keep the traveler mindset alive
What is that you did on your travels that you can keep doing now?
Look at things with a new set of eyes and from a different perspective. For instance: if thousands of tourists visit my hometown every year, they must do it for a reason!
Make an effort to explore your surroundings, or at least meet your friends at a different place ̶ why should it always be in that same cafe?
2. Be grateful
Be grateful for being surrounded by friends and family again, for your soft mattress and home-cooked meals. Revisit your favorite places more often, and find out what is that you like about them.
Be grateful for all that your hometown has to offer, even the small conveniences you wished you had while you traveled. For instance: as huge bread lovers, we recall craving almost every day for a bakery like the ones we had back home. Now that we’re back, we can stuff our faces with all the white bread and gluten we want!
Be grateful for the privilege of having traveled, and remember that coming back doesn’t mean that a chapter of your life has closed forever.
3. Take time for yourself
If you traveled long-term as we did, you remember how good it felt to take ownership of your time and self-indulge.
What were the things that you enjoyed the most? Have you taken time to re-connect with yourself since you came back?
And we’re not talking about binging the last season of your favorite show, we’re talking about fruitful, soul-pleasing time.
Go watch the sunset on the beach and meditate, read a new book, ride your bike around town.
If you’re into physical activity go trekking, get your heart pumping while getting in contact with nature.
4. Sign up for a class
Keep the momentum going and your brain stimulated by learning a new language ̶ one from a country you’ve been, or from a country you want to visit next. Seize the opportunity of your mind still being open and fill it in with knowledge!
Enroll in that yoga class and see how it goes.
Register for the marathon you always said you wanted to run.
5. Cook and Spice up your life!
Cook for your friends and family some of the exotic foods you’ve eaten abroad. Remember that being the only one who knows how the food is supposed to taste, you can pretend that you nailed it even if it ends up tasting like hot garbage. They’ll never know!
I’ve been following the recipes from a few books and these Youtube channels: Palin‘s Kitchen and Marion’s Kitchen. The Thai green curry, the fried rice, and Kung Pao Chicken have become crowd favorites at home. Next challenge: Thai Fried Bananas.
6. Get involved in a project
Start a personal project with your travel photos, set up a travel exhibition in your town with all the memory cards and gigabytes of pics you brought back. It’s an excellent way to share your stories with your community and friends. Start a Youtube channel and do something fun with all the videos recorded on your trips.
Last December Nuno and I did a Travel gathering in our hometown of Aveiro. A bunch of cool people came to hear our stories, see our photos and make some questions. It ended up being a 3-hour session dedicated to Southeast Asia and Australia.
We’re still getting facebook messages with questions from people about to travel through some of the countries we visited. And it’s super rewarding to be able to help.
7. Connect with other travelers
Another awesome way to connect with folks who groove on the travel culture is to read and comment on blogs and videos. Talk up travel with like-minded people, join Facebook groups ̶ you probably have pretty valid inputs to share.
Take in Couchsurfers, show them around town. Stay in contact with people doing what you love doing, stock up on some of their travel enthusiasm and keep that fire burning.
8. Get a makeover
A week after I arrived from Southeast Asia, I started to feel down in the dumps. It was like my brain was starting to forget all the cool stuff I lived, and something had to be done. So I used my body as a physical representation for change: got a haircut, took my earrings out, and trimmed my beard.
Now I and everyone around me is reminded that something has changed in me, inside and out. So I better behave accordingly.
9. Goals and Resolutions
Often the arrival of a New Year isn’t a big enough motivation to establish a new set of goals for ourselves. How many times did the calendar change and our lives remain the same for that entire year? That is because a New Year doesn’t imply transformation, but a life-changing event can be at the root of it.
The moment to rethink, reprioritize and let go of what’s not working for you, is at pivotal moments of your life, such as a trip around the world, college graduation, the birth of your first child.
There’s no better time to declare a new set of goals than when you get back from a trip all inspired and renewed. Now is the time to shift your goals and have them match the new expanded version of you.
10. Plan your next trip
Any thoughts on where to go next? Daydream with your next trip, research locations as an escape.
Start putting some money aside for it, set up a money-saving strategy ̶ if you did it once, you’ll be able to do it again.
Do whatever it takes to keep the adventurous travel spirit alive, and above all, ease yourself to the inevitability of routine. Find a way to retain the optimism and enthusiasm around by keeping busy ̶ purposefully busy ̶ instead of biting your nails out of boredom, or stain your travel memories with sadness.
Maintain your heart open, and transmute that stagnated yearn for adventures into risk-taking or life-changing matters. Move out, change the scenery, change jobs, color your hair, get a perm, propose, love yourself harder! Just don’t forget who you became and that you’ll travel again.
What have you been doing to keep the travel spirit alive? We’d really like to hear it.
Share it in the comments below.
Returning Home after a long trip. Now what?
I remember getting all anxious and fidgety when the time to come back home got closer, I wanted to keep going at any cost. I recall thinking that a last minute visit to Malaysia was an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted. After all, we were close by and the chance to visit it might not happen again. Besides, one of the biggest international airports in South East Asia is in Kuala Lumpur anyways. It’s perfect! We can catch a plane home from there.
As convenient as it may sound, I know that it was all to make the experience last for a few more days. I would’ve done anything to postpone the end.
Welcome home!
When we arrived, it wasn’t comforting to find things just as they were before, it was weird and surreal. I remember a heavy feeling of guilt in my stomach for not wanting to be back, and the fake smiles I had to force. An overwhelming sense of disconnection when I tried to rekindle friendships, as I found friends more interested in smartphone screens than our stories.
It’s funny how during our 5 months trip, I said frequently to Nuno:
– When we go back, we mustn’t become two of those travel bores that talk about traveling all the time.
Fortunately, that never happened. Sadly, because nobody cared about our trip.
It has been a difficult transition, not going to lie. People don’t seem to understand what our travel experiences meant for us: a time when we were truly happy and free.
But I get it, we were the ones that choose to leave for half a year, while they stayed here with “real responsibilities”.
However, it’s undeniable that our friends seem to be on different trails of life now: as we want to save money for our next trip/ they want to spend it on a new car. We want freedom/ they want to settle down. While we talk about dreams and aspirations/ they keep complaining about bills and work. It’s like we’re tuned to different frequencies nowadays
So, can traveling be transformational?
Some people say traveling can change you. Personally, I don’t believe so.
The only thing traveling long-term shifted in me was my perspective (and maybe my priorities). I believe it’s not about changing as it is about growing: I’m not a different person now that I’ve returned home, I’m actually more of the person that I was before I left.
Back to “reality”
Now that I’m back again, I find myself pressured to fit the mold, delay my happiness and follow the socioeconomic guide that says: ” Focus on career. Be successful. Make money”. The trouble is that I don’t see myself as a career man, and nothing annoys me more than the concept of success ̶ that empty, generic New Year’s Resolution that we’re all expected to strive for.
And I’m not avoiding responsibilities, working is necessary of course, but I won’t choose a career in detriment of a life well spent. My set of ambitions don’t pass through a solid résumé, or a good retirement plan because I don’t want to save all my money for retirement, but enjoy it along the way there.
Besides, if I have the privilege to pick what to do with my life, why would I choose to spend my most physically able years locked in an office? Plus, I firmly believe that when we like our craft we can do some version of it in any part of the world, so why be geographically restricted?
One thing is for sure: we can always make more money but we can’t make more time.
What now?
Traveling was a super rewarding experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything, and I know in my heart that I will travel again. In the meantime, I must prevent this happy-expanded version of myself from shrinking, so it’s fundamental that I handle my emotions in the best possible way.
Keeping the spirits up!
So what if, instead of looking at my return as the end of a chapter in my life, I saw it as a blank slate? What if I made it a mission to figure out what really matters to me now, and start building my life around it? What positive personality traits that came out during our travels can we translate to our daily lives?
Check out the action plan that has been helping Nuno and me through this gloomy period of adaptation:
10 Ways to Keep the Travel Spirit Alive
Are you back from a trip and your life is feeling a bit stale? How have you been feeling and coping with your return? Share your thoughts, leave us a reply down here.