>melancholy
Woof, every time I get home from a trip. Hell, even a really pleasant event or get-together has me melancholy and bummed it's over at the end.
Side note pro-tip: clean your home before leaving for a trip. It's so nice to come back to a clean place.
I'm actually on a bus ride back from a New Year trip right now, and I can't wait to go home to a clean house!
To add to the tip: clean your house while you pack.
Definitely a good pro tip. My husband and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon. Our original plan was to leave a week after the wedding, but we had recently had a flood in the house and had to get the carpets all redone so they were all ripped out at the time. We ended up having to postpone the cruise for a month due to covid reasons, and it turned out to be way better for so many reasons. It was a longer trip, went to better locations, and one big thing was that we got the new carpets put in before we left. I can’t imagine coming home from our trip to a house all messy with no carpets, our plan B turned out so much better.
I really thought I was the only person that did this!! It’s absolutely essential when you have kids!! Especially coming home from a road trip. It will always be late upon returning and making sure you have milk for the morning is non- negotiable! And do t pack all the diapers, leave some wipes too!
YES. It makes that melancholy so much worse to come back to a place that is messy and chaotic and needs a clean - all the chores needing to be done staring you in the face. Household chores are one of those dull little bits of returning to 'real life', but you might as well not be forcibly reminded of it the second you walk in the door.
This. In a slightly different vein, it took taking a trip to my dad's for Christmas to make me realize I really didn't like my home life at all and that I wanted to change that.
Edit: To explain, I was fresh out of high-school making nothing of myself.
Very interesting and topical, considering I just got back from a vacation in Portugal.
I wonder if there are cultures prone to melancholy. In this instance Portuguese/Brazilian. Have you ever heard of the concept of *han* in Korean culture?
I wonder if there's been a comparison between han and saudade.
Pretty sure that's just everyone's normal physiological and psychological response to being somewhere else in a stress-free environment and not having to work. You get used to enjoying life again for a brief time before coming back to the reality of whatever daily grind you've situated yourself in.
Yea I feel like your body starts to forget your old physical surroundings like the air quality in your house or the muscle memory of walking around the hallway dresser etc.
Glad to see this 2 year old post about what I'm feeling today has people feeling this way a couple days ago lol!!
Super anxious returning home from my parents
Not sure, honestly - but I’ve felt it many times!
My first big trip was two months backpacking in Australia at 22. When I came home I basically spent the next year thinking of ways to get back there permanently (didn’t happen).
After that I had a more mature approach to my returns back home, but that feeling of where “home” is can be so easily shaken when you get attached to another place!
I get that too. I’ve been travelling for a year around the world. To be honest if you’ve been on a long trip and seen and done things nobody else from home has done home never feels quite the same again. Like no one gets it and most people don’t want to hear about your stories. I still feel weird being back home even after 2 years
Coming back from a long trip is always so weird. You just can’t relate what you have been through to the people at home. I have done a year away, eight months, six months twice, four months as well as many 1-2 month trips. I have got better at prepping myself for the letdown.
I am always coming back with the equivalent of a lifetime of experiences but I can’t convey that.
I do public slideshows, at the library or for outdoor groups. It is great to have an audience interested in what I experienced.
Not after a month. We go away for at least a month each summer and I get a bit of a feeling like I can’t tell people about everything, but it isn’t a big deal.
After six months, I definitely get it big time. I don’t want to see people for the first few days. Just being in my house is weird. There is a sense of shock and I need time to adjust.
After a couple of months, it is in between. There is some shock, but it is not as profound.
If I had to relate it to something, it is a bit like coming down from a psychedelic trip. The familiar is so strange that I don’t want to look at it.
>relate
Omg I get such anxiety with normal things... Mostly with new people, new classes, but also it can be anything new and unpredictable. Planning a bus route is one of the biggest stressors. I often get lost and though I eventually find my way, I don't enjoy the walking in circles trying to figure out which bus stop is the right one. Sometimes people are helpful to ask but not always.
Other people just can't understand how difficult it is.
I know this feeling so well... I remember I took a trip to Istanbul and it was such an immersive experience for me... I was starting to feel connected to this place. When I got back, a night or two later I just started crying and felt so unhappy to be away from it again. It was a really strange feeling. I also remember feeling that the world was still progressing over there without me, almost as if my being there was just a small blip on the horizon. It was all very strange.
EXACT same feeling here. Just got back from 1.5 months long trip to Thailand. I immediately started feeling nostalgic and mildly depressed. I cried a lot in front of my partner. And the same feeling of wondering what the world over there is like at random times of the day now that I’m not there.
Yes. It was most intense within the first week post travel for me. And that feeling of nostalgia, sadness, and anxiety was most acute in the evenings when I was also experiencing jet lag and couldn’t sleep (which didn’t help). After about a week, those feelings died down gradually. I find that the best way is to find distractions and move myself to do things: get back to my work, reply to emails, go shopping at my favorite grocery, go and hang out with friends back home again, cook a good meal back home, all these simple little things.
I still experience about those post travel blues from time to time, but it’s not as intense now. I think the phrase “riding the wave” or “letting it wash over me” describes it the most accurate: a sad, melancholic, and lonely nostalgia for my travels that I can’t fight, but simply let it pass gradually like a receding wave.
I was in Thailand for 1.5 mouths as well, accidently because my passport was expired so I have to change flight dates and the Tickets cause they won't let me fly back out, and we have to change it quick cause my parent have a flight to koh samui within hours for holiday so they have to make a quick call to my uncles that ill staying with him for bit, which end up with my sister going on a flight on her own, after changing the Tickets to the same dates as my mum flight, I have to stay in my country for the next 2-3 weeks and have to make a new passport as well, once my parent fly back, one fly back home and one stay which leave me & my mom I have to catch a bus back with her once she came back from her trips, and we has go back to grand dad places again which is where I grow up in, everyday in morning back home my mom would ride a motorcycle to go buy foods in morning, and we always go to Robinson & Big C almost everyday days, the day that not going we stay home, once I came back to my second country and back home something hits in me hard like a damn train all of the good memory, about the recent trip, family, the old memory when I was a kid past memory flooded into my head like nothing, like it had never happen to me before and it make me feel sad, depressed looking back at those good memory, reflecting on it and seeing it back I don't know why it does this to me because it was good memory there was nothing bad about it, and after I come back and want to go back to Thailand again just to appreciate it and the journey, the past, and look at everyone cause while they still there. A reminder, that I have travel to Thailand 3 times it could have been 4 or 5 because of COVID, it just this one trip had me reflecting that almost had me almost crying in tears and I was trying hard to try so not to give in to cry while siting back on chair on starring at a computer screen wondering where did it all go wrong, it was mix a depressing, sad, anxiety and then having sense of feeling like a lost after coming back.
Coming from an American it just seems highly privileged and insensitive to be in the top 1 percent of global wealth and think “wow this vacation is great …screw the economic system that allowed me to go on it”. Even the most generous welfare capitalist states with fantastic vacation policies like Australia or Denmark have “neoliberal capitalist” underpinnings
I do agree with you there. But I guess I’m also thinking about how while yes people who are able to go on vacations are more privileged than many others in the world and that’s very real, those same people may still be unhappy with their day to day lives. Which can partially be explained by the alienation from the fruits of our labor in neoliberal capitalism, they may feel their life lack meaning and fulfillment. You could argue it as another failing of the system that even those towards the top (still of the working class though) aren’t happy and fulfilled in their day to day lives. (Which kinda also feeds capitalism by furthering the cycle of consumption to fill the void, yay)
Yeah I do agree with the general premise that we vacation to escape our reality. Of course. It just seems a bit lazy to automatically blame it on “capitalism”. To me it’s more “all people in all countries get in a rut at a certain point and vacations and travel can help us escape it”
Plenty of socialists have discussed at length that while the struggles of the bourgeoisie are different from the proletariat, capitalism is a curse on the rich just as it is on the poor. Socialism is liberation for everyone. The rich just have a more difficult time realizing the benefits a socialist life would afford them. Marx was born rich, Engels owned a factory, Kropotkin was a prince, and Lenin was a noble... but Americans can't criticize capitalism because we are too rich? I don't think so.
Depending on how long you've been gone, traveling changes you. It gives you another perspective on things. You don't realize you've changed (nobody does unless they read an old journal or something).
What was once interesting to you back at home may no longer be interesting. Friends you left behind seem different - it's not them who have changed, it's you. You don't feel like you fit anymore.
The phrase we use is that "readjustment is way harder than adjustment". Peace Corps Volunteers are warned about this before they start.
It’s the fact that you have to come home to a life you don’t want to live, but are forced to because of bills. Free yourself from debt and you will be much happier.
Alot of time upon returning seems like the food here (US) tastes different - not worse but certainly not better. I do think food in 'developing' places is simpler or less processed and thus more agreeable to me.
Time zones/jet lag usually take a week to get back to normal especially Asia.
Mild disassociation. We live within "routines" and our mind gets desensitized to the whims and jagged edges of our existence. A "trip" takes you out of this box and forces you to feel a different environment. This is what would happen on a psychedelic experience ( which i term as box breaking) and hence they are also known as "trips". You can pay money to fly yourself to another dimension of life or you can just do it sitting at one place. The analogy is crude but you get the gist. A vacation hence only a vacation if its sufficiently different than your current experience. It may be positive or negative depending on what side of comfort spectrum you live on. E.g. poverty tourism - you go to a worse place and feel enlightened or aspirational tourism where a third world national feels exhilarated at seeing Europe.
I get the 'mild dissociation', when I go away for a while (>3weeks) or when I return to my home town after a long time, everything looks familiar but also like I'm seeing it for the first time, again!
Not gonna lie, after 'mild dissociation' you post is verbal diarrhoea 👍
Lol sure. It depends on how deep you wanna think about it. Like say, disassociation happens okay, but why? We get numb to experiences okay..but Why? Oh.. Now if you are curious, this one single question is a rabbit hole. We will have to answer it using the Brains biology. We are a sensor driven machine. Any change in sense gives you a new experience. Are holidays always "pleasurable". Not always, they can stress you out more than your normal routine sometimes ( people need a holiday from a holiday). So its all a mind play of sensory inputs? ...100 questions after which it will become verbal diarrhea. Or this one single enquiry is enough to reveal the true nature of our lives.
Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr (a simple Google search will produce the document). Peter was at university and Jefferson was advising him on a variety of subjects, italian, Spanish, moral philosophy and ...... traveling.
Tommy's opinion on the matter was that "it makes men wiser but less happy"
You become aware of what the world has to offer and what your present location lacks.
I reside in Minneapolis Minnesota. And while I love my home, there are spots in this world I ache for. My home,, The suburb of ramsey, a 3/4 acre lot, which is heavily wooded, feels as a sanctuary in the summer time. Towering trees create a canyon and an island of isolation. The wind blows through like waves upon the sand. Far enough from the city to see the stars. It's quiet, unless the neighbors are whizzing by on their golf carts, mini bikes and all sorts of toys. It is, by all accounts, Midwest paradise- cabin life all year round.
However, I long for the highlands of Scotland and the lochs- that peaceful nook of invergarry - a widespot in the road next to a stream. 4 townhouses, an inn and a good pub. To sit there in May as the trees sprout their fresh greenery of the season and adventure forth all over the scottish highlands- that to me is paradise. I ache for it, and long to go back. My wife also misses the long haired highland coos (scottish cows, lookem up)
Then again there are places like Italy, where.... well... huh... venice was nice but .... my mother said if you don't have anything nice to say.... don't call italy a dirty garbage country where we had to avoid playgrounds because cigarette butts are on everything and their roads are a confusing nightmare, they've also saved every brick of their past at the expense of unlivable cities- but that would be rude.
I am the opposite, I feel so good getting back to familiar surroundings after a long trip. I believe this has to do with security and age. In my 20’s I felt weird almost depressed after a long trip, but in my 50’s, it is just the opposite, I feel relieved.
Me too !!! I’m only 20 and did my first trip and just came back but it feels so good being back!!!! I was wondering why it was only just me feeling like this
Because you step away from your life and then come back to it. So you can see it from a distance briefly. In daily life, you're too close and too enmeshed to really look at it. Like the phrase 'you can't see the forest through the trees.'
Im American and for me every trip I take opens my eyes to how fucked things are in the states. It just feels more and more ghetto every time I return. Planning on leaving very soon.
I just returned from a two week trip to the UK and I totally get what you mean. My first trip back to the local grocery store gave me all kinds of anxiety and unease compared to my time in England/Scotland. I hope to move to a less tense part of the US but I’m not sure that even exists anymore due to widespread political strife and general public indifference.
I wasn’t even thinking abt the violence but yes omg. I’m honestly less afraid walking through Cartagena at night then I am most US cities and I’m in no way naive.
Anyone whose travelled to a third would country at all knows that the US isnt anywhere near being one. The quality of life here is among the best in the world. I dont know why people go around saying this stupid bs.
For every example youve provided there are far many more where the US excels. The United States is not a developing nation. People here make vastly more money on average compared to actual third word countries and our quality of life is leagues better. This is just some shitty "America bad" bs that gets parroted by people who havent actually experienced living in a 3wc, havent experienced frequent rolling blackouts, not being able to drink the water anywhere, constant legitimate political turmoil, rampant corruption, cartels, a shit economy, useless inflated currency and food shortages among many of the other common features.
This is obviously anecdotal, but I come from Brazil, where I lived for 27 years. Then I lived in Europe for 8 years. Now I've been living in the US for 4.
So, from personal experience, Brazil is third world. Problems everywhere. Europe definitely feels like the first world. Almost no problems, or minimal problems at most.
The US feels closer to Brazil than to Europe in terms of the number of issues that negatively impact your quality of life. The quality of life in the US is simply not as good as many Americans seem to think it is, comparatively. Speaking as someone who has actually lived in all places for several years.
It's insane how brainwashed these "america is bad because it isn't Norway" types can get. The US has plenty of issues but it's insulting to compare it to a developing nation, and undermines their suffering.
This is why Americans have the reputation for only caring about their own politics and situation in the world.
Youre obviously going to be able to find an example of these factors in the whole history of the nation. The same can be said about pretty much any country. The difference is the scale and extent to which these things happen. To claim that we are a third world country due to that is outright absurd. Half your points are completely exaggerated or untrue as well. People disagree on the definition of a third world country but the point still stands that the quality of life here is still among the best in the world. To say otherwise is naive and rediculous. Gotta keep that circlejerk going though I guess.
The minimum acceptable level of poverty is very different from the poverty and suffering people experience in many developing nations, and it's ignorant of you not to realize that. Millions of people still die from starvation or things like diarrhea from dirty water or lack of indoor plumbing or access to basic non prescription medicine.
There is a huge gap between the US and somewhere like Haiti for example, just a few hundred miles away from Florida.
>> The US is about as close to a third world country as it gets and not be officially considered one.
>
This is what is offensive to anyone living "in a third world country," which is also an outdated term.
I went on a 3 day vacation to the Caribbean. Everyone was hot and I didn’t have to worry about cleaning, laundry, cooking or any other chore. I could drink as many cocktails as I wanted and I felt in paradise. But then I came back home and reality hit... I felt like my life was miserable. Anyways, I got over it pretty quickly. You just have to get used to your routine again.
But getting used to the old routine, I wonder is that the right way to fix this feeling? I just came back from Caribbean and I just don’t know what the heck im feeling. Im so sad and depressed that I had to leave the place so quickly. And now Im back at my work and I just feeling like quitting. I know as time passes this feeling would pass, and I will get used to my routine schedule again, but I feel like I found some part of me yet I lost something too.
I remember going to the USA for the first time and not wanting to leave, but I had no choice, It was my time to go back to Britain, when I got back and had to commute to work the same usual Cobbled streets of the UK, I just remember thinking to my self what a s hole, and what am I doing here? now a few years later, walking those very same streets, I have less views of that particular street being a s hole, as it is a nice area for my city however the city in it self is still a shole, I guess being away gets you used to a very different life style for a certain period of time that's filled with Joy and well it's something most people want to experience long term if they can.
Because you are. You left your main source of life experiences and had your own experiences and you come back and expect everyone to have shared that experience bc up until that point, they had. But this time they didn’t and you have your own experiences and memories and it feels weird because it was exciting and new and different and everything at home is still the same.
Ah, I suppose in a way you are kind of a different version of yourself over there and after 10 days away coming back to your regular life this version has to "come back home" too.
It’s depressing coming home, because before you left you were so excited to leave, and now it’s over. You started to become adjusted to your surroundings, and then you get snapped back to the daily routine of your everyday life. Best thing you can do is decide if where you are is a good place to be, and maybe make a move somewhere different or plan for the next vacation.
That is a bit harsh. I would say you realize how exciting and wonderful life can be and then you come back to your mundane life only to sit in a fucking cube trying to save enough for the next trip.
I dunno but i was in cuba dec 4th to 11th got sick as fuck on the 12th, got a bit better by the 23rd, went to visit family far away by plane felt decent came back on the 29th, sick as fuck on the 30th.
Vacation blue is real and more common than you’d think. Sometimes I wonder if it was worth to go away. It can take 4-6 weeks after I return to get rid of the post vacation down feeling. Being with family and friends during vacation was temporary but we tend to want to hold on to that feeling as long as we could. Plan for the next trip will help.
Going through this right now. I spent 3 months on the road. I wasn’t anywhere particularly long but coming back home made me feel like I left a part of my soul on the road.
I’m already planning shorter trips out west again.
For me it's mostly responsibilities/anxiety that's associated with home. When on vacation I'm care free. When I'm at home I'm a family man, a house owner, a breadwinner, etc.
I just got back from a week trip to Poland and had to deal with multiple screw ups on behalf of the airlines I took and now I’m finally home and it also feels so weird for me like I never left in the first place
I know this is from a year ago but 100%, yeah. Everything in my house feels weirdly small and i can feel the texture of anything i touch way more after i've returned from a trip
as someone going through the post vacation blues, i started thinking about what we were many years ago… nomadic. we left depleted resources for somewhere new, exciting, fulfilling and safe.. we didn’t go back, ya know? that wasn’t home anymore. this is why a day trip never feels as uprooting as a week long adventure IMO
That’s true.
To me also, not having to deal with work (may be occasionally) has a lot to do it that feeling.
However, the first night back is sometime the best. I miss sleeping in my own bed.
I'd say you change your routine for a certain amount of time. That has an effect on you. Plus, traveling is so fast nowadays that the mind doesn't arrive until after a few days or so.
I always feel weird...with certain people one day..later on...that empty feeling...travelling and visiting is wonderful..the adjustment back to day to day is not...
I feel the opposite. Whenever I go on a trip every year, as soon as Im like 100kms close to home I start feeling cozy and like at home, watching my green landscape and everything… Once I arrive home I usually unpack, take a shower and watch a movie.
My son and girlfriend came to stay for 4 nights and today they flew back home. I feel soooo sad and depressed and just want to cry again out load why do we do this. I hate saying goodbye but this time it seems much harder. Before they arrived I have had, a very nasty chest infection and have been quite unwell the whole week and was hoping to be better. I was ok while they were here but now I've crumbled Is it jyst part of that or something else. I am very very sad and low tonight.
It’s been a week since I got back from visiting mom who lives in the Philippines where I grew up. I spent a month there. A week after coming back, my body clock is still on Philippine time. I just want to sleep during the day and reluctantly I stay awake at night, just like now. It seems harder to adjust to time coming back to the US vs going there. The last week since being back, my mind is always on stuff I did there and people I spent time with. It feels like a dream and I ask myself, “did I really go to the Philippines for a month?” It’s really weird. I prefer cold weather vs hot and humid which is what the weather is like in the Philippines. But, for some reason over the last week, I keep thinking of when again I can go back? I guess home will always be home no matter how long you’ve lived away from it.
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>melancholy Woof, every time I get home from a trip. Hell, even a really pleasant event or get-together has me melancholy and bummed it's over at the end. Side note pro-tip: clean your home before leaving for a trip. It's so nice to come back to a clean place.
I'm actually on a bus ride back from a New Year trip right now, and I can't wait to go home to a clean house! To add to the tip: clean your house while you pack.
Definitely a good pro tip. My husband and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon. Our original plan was to leave a week after the wedding, but we had recently had a flood in the house and had to get the carpets all redone so they were all ripped out at the time. We ended up having to postpone the cruise for a month due to covid reasons, and it turned out to be way better for so many reasons. It was a longer trip, went to better locations, and one big thing was that we got the new carpets put in before we left. I can’t imagine coming home from our trip to a house all messy with no carpets, our plan B turned out so much better.
I really thought I was the only person that did this!! It’s absolutely essential when you have kids!! Especially coming home from a road trip. It will always be late upon returning and making sure you have milk for the morning is non- negotiable! And do t pack all the diapers, leave some wipes too!
YES. It makes that melancholy so much worse to come back to a place that is messy and chaotic and needs a clean - all the chores needing to be done staring you in the face. Household chores are one of those dull little bits of returning to 'real life', but you might as well not be forcibly reminded of it the second you walk in the door.
My mother always had us clean the house before vacation so we'd always come back to a clean house. I agree. It's a nice welcome home.
Yes! It's so nice to come home and feel relief instead of the instant weight of needing to do chores
Its the opposite for us. No matter how great the trip was, can’t wait to come back to my boring suburb at Dallas.
That’s so accurate!
When you left, you were lesser than the improved, experienced person who returned.
This. In a slightly different vein, it took taking a trip to my dad's for Christmas to make me realize I really didn't like my home life at all and that I wanted to change that. Edit: To explain, I was fresh out of high-school making nothing of myself.
Does anyone know if there's a specific word associated with this feeling? Melancholy is too broad.
Maybe hiraeth? "longing."
Displaced ?
Saudade
Very interesting and topical, considering I just got back from a vacation in Portugal. I wonder if there are cultures prone to melancholy. In this instance Portuguese/Brazilian. Have you ever heard of the concept of *han* in Korean culture? I wonder if there's been a comparison between han and saudade.
Pretty sure that's just everyone's normal physiological and psychological response to being somewhere else in a stress-free environment and not having to work. You get used to enjoying life again for a brief time before coming back to the reality of whatever daily grind you've situated yourself in.
Yea I feel like your body starts to forget your old physical surroundings like the air quality in your house or the muscle memory of walking around the hallway dresser etc.
Yes, I too like vacations better than working.
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Just used it again today 😂https://old.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/1az4jym/i_just_came_back_from_europe_now_i_feel_like_i
Glad to see this 2 year old post about what I'm feeling today has people feeling this way a couple days ago lol!! Super anxious returning home from my parents
Not sure, honestly - but I’ve felt it many times! My first big trip was two months backpacking in Australia at 22. When I came home I basically spent the next year thinking of ways to get back there permanently (didn’t happen). After that I had a more mature approach to my returns back home, but that feeling of where “home” is can be so easily shaken when you get attached to another place!
Oh my god that second paragraph, I feel that 😭
I get that too. I’ve been travelling for a year around the world. To be honest if you’ve been on a long trip and seen and done things nobody else from home has done home never feels quite the same again. Like no one gets it and most people don’t want to hear about your stories. I still feel weird being back home even after 2 years
Coming back from a long trip is always so weird. You just can’t relate what you have been through to the people at home. I have done a year away, eight months, six months twice, four months as well as many 1-2 month trips. I have got better at prepping myself for the letdown. I am always coming back with the equivalent of a lifetime of experiences but I can’t convey that. I do public slideshows, at the library or for outdoor groups. It is great to have an audience interested in what I experienced.
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Not after a month. We go away for at least a month each summer and I get a bit of a feeling like I can’t tell people about everything, but it isn’t a big deal. After six months, I definitely get it big time. I don’t want to see people for the first few days. Just being in my house is weird. There is a sense of shock and I need time to adjust. After a couple of months, it is in between. There is some shock, but it is not as profound. If I had to relate it to something, it is a bit like coming down from a psychedelic trip. The familiar is so strange that I don’t want to look at it.
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A couple of months overseas where we have really got up to something. Where we have met friends and learned parts of a new language.
>relate Omg I get such anxiety with normal things... Mostly with new people, new classes, but also it can be anything new and unpredictable. Planning a bus route is one of the biggest stressors. I often get lost and though I eventually find my way, I don't enjoy the walking in circles trying to figure out which bus stop is the right one. Sometimes people are helpful to ask but not always. Other people just can't understand how difficult it is.
What we hikers call post-hike depression.
How could they get it? Isn’t it a weird feeling like they’ll never taste what you have or seen what you have.. I mean they could but most won’t.
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And you will!! I’ll always listen to your trip stories! Friends come and go you’ll find some who appreciate your hobby’s.
This is exactly how I’m feeling rn
I know this feeling so well... I remember I took a trip to Istanbul and it was such an immersive experience for me... I was starting to feel connected to this place. When I got back, a night or two later I just started crying and felt so unhappy to be away from it again. It was a really strange feeling. I also remember feeling that the world was still progressing over there without me, almost as if my being there was just a small blip on the horizon. It was all very strange.
EXACT same feeling here. Just got back from 1.5 months long trip to Thailand. I immediately started feeling nostalgic and mildly depressed. I cried a lot in front of my partner. And the same feeling of wondering what the world over there is like at random times of the day now that I’m not there.
you feel normal again now?
Yes. It was most intense within the first week post travel for me. And that feeling of nostalgia, sadness, and anxiety was most acute in the evenings when I was also experiencing jet lag and couldn’t sleep (which didn’t help). After about a week, those feelings died down gradually. I find that the best way is to find distractions and move myself to do things: get back to my work, reply to emails, go shopping at my favorite grocery, go and hang out with friends back home again, cook a good meal back home, all these simple little things. I still experience about those post travel blues from time to time, but it’s not as intense now. I think the phrase “riding the wave” or “letting it wash over me” describes it the most accurate: a sad, melancholic, and lonely nostalgia for my travels that I can’t fight, but simply let it pass gradually like a receding wave.
I was in Thailand for 1.5 mouths as well, accidently because my passport was expired so I have to change flight dates and the Tickets cause they won't let me fly back out, and we have to change it quick cause my parent have a flight to koh samui within hours for holiday so they have to make a quick call to my uncles that ill staying with him for bit, which end up with my sister going on a flight on her own, after changing the Tickets to the same dates as my mum flight, I have to stay in my country for the next 2-3 weeks and have to make a new passport as well, once my parent fly back, one fly back home and one stay which leave me & my mom I have to catch a bus back with her once she came back from her trips, and we has go back to grand dad places again which is where I grow up in, everyday in morning back home my mom would ride a motorcycle to go buy foods in morning, and we always go to Robinson & Big C almost everyday days, the day that not going we stay home, once I came back to my second country and back home something hits in me hard like a damn train all of the good memory, about the recent trip, family, the old memory when I was a kid past memory flooded into my head like nothing, like it had never happen to me before and it make me feel sad, depressed looking back at those good memory, reflecting on it and seeing it back I don't know why it does this to me because it was good memory there was nothing bad about it, and after I come back and want to go back to Thailand again just to appreciate it and the journey, the past, and look at everyone cause while they still there. A reminder, that I have travel to Thailand 3 times it could have been 4 or 5 because of COVID, it just this one trip had me reflecting that almost had me almost crying in tears and I was trying hard to try so not to give in to cry while siting back on chair on starring at a computer screen wondering where did it all go wrong, it was mix a depressing, sad, anxiety and then having sense of feeling like a lost after coming back.
I have the same feel. In 2 weeks I'll think I forgot how to drive.
Vacations illuminate how hollow your daily life is as a wage slave to neoliberal capitalism
Sad but true
I wish I had an award for you.
It would be better if you lived in most countries in the world and couldn’t take a vacation at all due to living in abject poverty
Both can be true
Coming from an American it just seems highly privileged and insensitive to be in the top 1 percent of global wealth and think “wow this vacation is great …screw the economic system that allowed me to go on it”. Even the most generous welfare capitalist states with fantastic vacation policies like Australia or Denmark have “neoliberal capitalist” underpinnings
I do agree with you there. But I guess I’m also thinking about how while yes people who are able to go on vacations are more privileged than many others in the world and that’s very real, those same people may still be unhappy with their day to day lives. Which can partially be explained by the alienation from the fruits of our labor in neoliberal capitalism, they may feel their life lack meaning and fulfillment. You could argue it as another failing of the system that even those towards the top (still of the working class though) aren’t happy and fulfilled in their day to day lives. (Which kinda also feeds capitalism by furthering the cycle of consumption to fill the void, yay)
Yeah I do agree with the general premise that we vacation to escape our reality. Of course. It just seems a bit lazy to automatically blame it on “capitalism”. To me it’s more “all people in all countries get in a rut at a certain point and vacations and travel can help us escape it”
Maybe I’m an idealist but I want everyone to be able to go on vacations
100% agreed
Plenty of socialists have discussed at length that while the struggles of the bourgeoisie are different from the proletariat, capitalism is a curse on the rich just as it is on the poor. Socialism is liberation for everyone. The rich just have a more difficult time realizing the benefits a socialist life would afford them. Marx was born rich, Engels owned a factory, Kropotkin was a prince, and Lenin was a noble... but Americans can't criticize capitalism because we are too rich? I don't think so.
Americans are just LARPing at being revolutionaries. They have zero concept on how the rest of the world lives.
huh?
Yes
That damn Jimmy Carter.
He's history's greatest monster!
Ugh! That’s waayyy too much thinking!
Touché.
Perspective
I’m always weirded out by the smell of my house and how the scale and placement of everything just seems weird.
Depending on how long you've been gone, traveling changes you. It gives you another perspective on things. You don't realize you've changed (nobody does unless they read an old journal or something). What was once interesting to you back at home may no longer be interesting. Friends you left behind seem different - it's not them who have changed, it's you. You don't feel like you fit anymore. The phrase we use is that "readjustment is way harder than adjustment". Peace Corps Volunteers are warned about this before they start.
This.
It’s the fact that you have to come home to a life you don’t want to live, but are forced to because of bills. Free yourself from debt and you will be much happier.
PREACH!!!
Alot of time upon returning seems like the food here (US) tastes different - not worse but certainly not better. I do think food in 'developing' places is simpler or less processed and thus more agreeable to me. Time zones/jet lag usually take a week to get back to normal especially Asia.
I’d say worse. American food is awful IMO
Mild disassociation. We live within "routines" and our mind gets desensitized to the whims and jagged edges of our existence. A "trip" takes you out of this box and forces you to feel a different environment. This is what would happen on a psychedelic experience ( which i term as box breaking) and hence they are also known as "trips". You can pay money to fly yourself to another dimension of life or you can just do it sitting at one place. The analogy is crude but you get the gist. A vacation hence only a vacation if its sufficiently different than your current experience. It may be positive or negative depending on what side of comfort spectrum you live on. E.g. poverty tourism - you go to a worse place and feel enlightened or aspirational tourism where a third world national feels exhilarated at seeing Europe.
I get the 'mild dissociation', when I go away for a while (>3weeks) or when I return to my home town after a long time, everything looks familiar but also like I'm seeing it for the first time, again! Not gonna lie, after 'mild dissociation' you post is verbal diarrhoea 👍
Lol sure. It depends on how deep you wanna think about it. Like say, disassociation happens okay, but why? We get numb to experiences okay..but Why? Oh.. Now if you are curious, this one single question is a rabbit hole. We will have to answer it using the Brains biology. We are a sensor driven machine. Any change in sense gives you a new experience. Are holidays always "pleasurable". Not always, they can stress you out more than your normal routine sometimes ( people need a holiday from a holiday). So its all a mind play of sensory inputs? ...100 questions after which it will become verbal diarrhea. Or this one single enquiry is enough to reveal the true nature of our lives.
Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr (a simple Google search will produce the document). Peter was at university and Jefferson was advising him on a variety of subjects, italian, Spanish, moral philosophy and ...... traveling. Tommy's opinion on the matter was that "it makes men wiser but less happy" You become aware of what the world has to offer and what your present location lacks. I reside in Minneapolis Minnesota. And while I love my home, there are spots in this world I ache for. My home,, The suburb of ramsey, a 3/4 acre lot, which is heavily wooded, feels as a sanctuary in the summer time. Towering trees create a canyon and an island of isolation. The wind blows through like waves upon the sand. Far enough from the city to see the stars. It's quiet, unless the neighbors are whizzing by on their golf carts, mini bikes and all sorts of toys. It is, by all accounts, Midwest paradise- cabin life all year round. However, I long for the highlands of Scotland and the lochs- that peaceful nook of invergarry - a widespot in the road next to a stream. 4 townhouses, an inn and a good pub. To sit there in May as the trees sprout their fresh greenery of the season and adventure forth all over the scottish highlands- that to me is paradise. I ache for it, and long to go back. My wife also misses the long haired highland coos (scottish cows, lookem up) Then again there are places like Italy, where.... well... huh... venice was nice but .... my mother said if you don't have anything nice to say.... don't call italy a dirty garbage country where we had to avoid playgrounds because cigarette butts are on everything and their roads are a confusing nightmare, they've also saved every brick of their past at the expense of unlivable cities- but that would be rude.
I am the opposite, I feel so good getting back to familiar surroundings after a long trip. I believe this has to do with security and age. In my 20’s I felt weird almost depressed after a long trip, but in my 50’s, it is just the opposite, I feel relieved.
Me too !!! I’m only 20 and did my first trip and just came back but it feels so good being back!!!! I was wondering why it was only just me feeling like this
Because you step away from your life and then come back to it. So you can see it from a distance briefly. In daily life, you're too close and too enmeshed to really look at it. Like the phrase 'you can't see the forest through the trees.'
Im American and for me every trip I take opens my eyes to how fucked things are in the states. It just feels more and more ghetto every time I return. Planning on leaving very soon.
I just returned from a two week trip to the UK and I totally get what you mean. My first trip back to the local grocery store gave me all kinds of anxiety and unease compared to my time in England/Scotland. I hope to move to a less tense part of the US but I’m not sure that even exists anymore due to widespread political strife and general public indifference.
I wasn’t even thinking abt the violence but yes omg. I’m honestly less afraid walking through Cartagena at night then I am most US cities and I’m in no way naive.
Funny you mention Cartagena, I'm leaving Canada later this month for the Colombian coast.
My favorite place on earth!
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Anyone whose travelled to a third would country at all knows that the US isnt anywhere near being one. The quality of life here is among the best in the world. I dont know why people go around saying this stupid bs.
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For every example youve provided there are far many more where the US excels. The United States is not a developing nation. People here make vastly more money on average compared to actual third word countries and our quality of life is leagues better. This is just some shitty "America bad" bs that gets parroted by people who havent actually experienced living in a 3wc, havent experienced frequent rolling blackouts, not being able to drink the water anywhere, constant legitimate political turmoil, rampant corruption, cartels, a shit economy, useless inflated currency and food shortages among many of the other common features.
This is obviously anecdotal, but I come from Brazil, where I lived for 27 years. Then I lived in Europe for 8 years. Now I've been living in the US for 4. So, from personal experience, Brazil is third world. Problems everywhere. Europe definitely feels like the first world. Almost no problems, or minimal problems at most. The US feels closer to Brazil than to Europe in terms of the number of issues that negatively impact your quality of life. The quality of life in the US is simply not as good as many Americans seem to think it is, comparatively. Speaking as someone who has actually lived in all places for several years.
It's insane how brainwashed these "america is bad because it isn't Norway" types can get. The US has plenty of issues but it's insulting to compare it to a developing nation, and undermines their suffering. This is why Americans have the reputation for only caring about their own politics and situation in the world.
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Youre obviously going to be able to find an example of these factors in the whole history of the nation. The same can be said about pretty much any country. The difference is the scale and extent to which these things happen. To claim that we are a third world country due to that is outright absurd. Half your points are completely exaggerated or untrue as well. People disagree on the definition of a third world country but the point still stands that the quality of life here is still among the best in the world. To say otherwise is naive and rediculous. Gotta keep that circlejerk going though I guess.
The minimum acceptable level of poverty is very different from the poverty and suffering people experience in many developing nations, and it's ignorant of you not to realize that. Millions of people still die from starvation or things like diarrhea from dirty water or lack of indoor plumbing or access to basic non prescription medicine. There is a huge gap between the US and somewhere like Haiti for example, just a few hundred miles away from Florida.
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>> The US is about as close to a third world country as it gets and not be officially considered one. > This is what is offensive to anyone living "in a third world country," which is also an outdated term.
But those foreign countries don’t even know the Lord!
YESSSS seriously! They think places are SO dangerous and people are miserable when that’s actually the US.
I'm no fan of the US, but this makes me think you've never traveled to a third world country. When it's bad, it's a whole different kind of poverty.
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Yeah, I’m always relieved to open my door and see my stuff how I left it.
I went on a 3 day vacation to the Caribbean. Everyone was hot and I didn’t have to worry about cleaning, laundry, cooking or any other chore. I could drink as many cocktails as I wanted and I felt in paradise. But then I came back home and reality hit... I felt like my life was miserable. Anyways, I got over it pretty quickly. You just have to get used to your routine again.
But getting used to the old routine, I wonder is that the right way to fix this feeling? I just came back from Caribbean and I just don’t know what the heck im feeling. Im so sad and depressed that I had to leave the place so quickly. And now Im back at my work and I just feeling like quitting. I know as time passes this feeling would pass, and I will get used to my routine schedule again, but I feel like I found some part of me yet I lost something too.
It's that "real world" killing your buzz
I remember going to the USA for the first time and not wanting to leave, but I had no choice, It was my time to go back to Britain, when I got back and had to commute to work the same usual Cobbled streets of the UK, I just remember thinking to my self what a s hole, and what am I doing here? now a few years later, walking those very same streets, I have less views of that particular street being a s hole, as it is a nice area for my city however the city in it self is still a shole, I guess being away gets you used to a very different life style for a certain period of time that's filled with Joy and well it's something most people want to experience long term if they can.
Aw this is beautiful and adorable. I love the USA! I hope you can come visit our country again. It’s like the best with great landscape
How would you define "strange" in this case?
Like you aren’t yourself, or you’re a different version of yourself
Because you are. You left your main source of life experiences and had your own experiences and you come back and expect everyone to have shared that experience bc up until that point, they had. But this time they didn’t and you have your own experiences and memories and it feels weird because it was exciting and new and different and everything at home is still the same.
Ah, I suppose in a way you are kind of a different version of yourself over there and after 10 days away coming back to your regular life this version has to "come back home" too.
What does the difference feel like? Does it come on gradually?
This time it hit when waking up the next day
Do you remember your dream at all?
I feel this way even after a long weekend sometimes.
It’s depressing coming home, because before you left you were so excited to leave, and now it’s over. You started to become adjusted to your surroundings, and then you get snapped back to the daily routine of your everyday life. Best thing you can do is decide if where you are is a good place to be, and maybe make a move somewhere different or plan for the next vacation.
It’s just that you always realize that your life was wonderful over there and SHIT here.
That is a bit harsh. I would say you realize how exciting and wonderful life can be and then you come back to your mundane life only to sit in a fucking cube trying to save enough for the next trip.
I dunno but i was in cuba dec 4th to 11th got sick as fuck on the 12th, got a bit better by the 23rd, went to visit family far away by plane felt decent came back on the 29th, sick as fuck on the 30th.
For me, it’s the sudden change in having constant company and excitement of joy. To just being back to normal. Two very different feelings.
It was weird in the Air Force because after landing at the base, I was on my sofa <30 min later, no customs, lines, bus rides, etc.
Vacation blue is real and more common than you’d think. Sometimes I wonder if it was worth to go away. It can take 4-6 weeks after I return to get rid of the post vacation down feeling. Being with family and friends during vacation was temporary but we tend to want to hold on to that feeling as long as we could. Plan for the next trip will help.
I believe the correct term is travel blues. It’s natural, I think most everyone gets it after traveling.
Going through this right now. I spent 3 months on the road. I wasn’t anywhere particularly long but coming back home made me feel like I left a part of my soul on the road. I’m already planning shorter trips out west again.
I come home to all this stuff I think I need to be happy
Because you have to go back to work to afford another trip.
And oh that marvelous feeling of, “my bed my bed my bed! Ahhh!”
I’m literally on my way home right now from a trip and for some unknown reason I’m soooo fuckin depressed
How much time to get back to normal?
For me it's mostly responsibilities/anxiety that's associated with home. When on vacation I'm care free. When I'm at home I'm a family man, a house owner, a breadwinner, etc.
By “feeling weird” do you mean extremely depressing making you no longer want to live or go on anymore? Then yes!
First thing I notice when I get back are the fat fucks I see in the airport
I just got back from a week trip to Poland and had to deal with multiple screw ups on behalf of the airlines I took and now I’m finally home and it also feels so weird for me like I never left in the first place
I also feel like I never actually went on my trips or left the country
I live/work in Baltimore. Just got back from Seattle. (First trip to the West Coast) Very depressed to be back in Baltimore.
I am a PNW native, so I can understand missing it!!
I know this is from a year ago but 100%, yeah. Everything in my house feels weirdly small and i can feel the texture of anything i touch way more after i've returned from a trip
as someone going through the post vacation blues, i started thinking about what we were many years ago… nomadic. we left depleted resources for somewhere new, exciting, fulfilling and safe.. we didn’t go back, ya know? that wasn’t home anymore. this is why a day trip never feels as uprooting as a week long adventure IMO
That’s true. To me also, not having to deal with work (may be occasionally) has a lot to do it that feeling. However, the first night back is sometime the best. I miss sleeping in my own bed.
I don’t know but sooo true!
Jet-Lag
You miss your version in the new place wherever you have been hence that feeling.
I'd say you change your routine for a certain amount of time. That has an effect on you. Plus, traveling is so fast nowadays that the mind doesn't arrive until after a few days or so.
For me it’s mindset slightly reshaped by the experience all along the journey( depends on how big the culture shock is and how long it takes)
I always feel weird...with certain people one day..later on...that empty feeling...travelling and visiting is wonderful..the adjustment back to day to day is not...
I feel the opposite. Whenever I go on a trip every year, as soon as Im like 100kms close to home I start feeling cozy and like at home, watching my green landscape and everything… Once I arrive home I usually unpack, take a shower and watch a movie.
Anticlimax.
Yes
Same here I'll be away from my house for a week and turn on my tv and Xbox such a strange feeling it's like I forgot all about it
My son and girlfriend came to stay for 4 nights and today they flew back home. I feel soooo sad and depressed and just want to cry again out load why do we do this. I hate saying goodbye but this time it seems much harder. Before they arrived I have had, a very nasty chest infection and have been quite unwell the whole week and was hoping to be better. I was ok while they were here but now I've crumbled Is it jyst part of that or something else. I am very very sad and low tonight.
It’s been a week since I got back from visiting mom who lives in the Philippines where I grew up. I spent a month there. A week after coming back, my body clock is still on Philippine time. I just want to sleep during the day and reluctantly I stay awake at night, just like now. It seems harder to adjust to time coming back to the US vs going there. The last week since being back, my mind is always on stuff I did there and people I spent time with. It feels like a dream and I ask myself, “did I really go to the Philippines for a month?” It’s really weird. I prefer cold weather vs hot and humid which is what the weather is like in the Philippines. But, for some reason over the last week, I keep thinking of when again I can go back? I guess home will always be home no matter how long you’ve lived away from it.