It’s something we spend a considerable amount of time pondering over in between our travels: what’s the best way to deal with the travel blues after an amazing trip?
Our Travel Blues
We’d been looking forward to our Myanmar trip forever. The country had been at the top of our bucket list for years and was every bit as amazing, interesting and diverse as we had imagined. Then we arrived home to a cold and dark Irish winter and the harsh reality that our dream trip was over. After wishing that Myanmar would ring us up and invite us back (it never happened!) we had to get back to real life and find our non travel happiness.
Read on for our top tips on adjusting from a dream trip and getting back to reality!
1 | Start planning another trip
For us, it is essential to have something to look forward to on our calendars even if it’s only one night in the distant future. We always try to have a trip lined up that we can dream of, plan for and look forward to. Our Myanmar jaunt was booked 9 months ahead of travel which meant 9 months of wanderlust for the main event. Perfect!
2 | Write about your travels
I love recording my travels in a travel journal and writing about the moments, the experiences and the amazing time we had. When I read back on the places we’ve been, the people we met and the fun we had it absolutely takes my breath away. Pretty journals help: I am the proud owner of some gorgeous travel themed stationary that always perks me up!
3 | Share your advice with other travellers
Let’s face it: we all love to relive our travel experiences and what better way than to give advice to future travellers to the destination you loved so much? Helping other travellers is one of our favourite benefits of having our blog. So join a forum, share your best tips and experiences and help others to have the same amazing trip that you had.
4 | Print the pics!
It makes me sad that so many mind-blowing experiences are only recorded on social media, memory cards and smart phones. Where’s the fun in that? Go back to basics and get printing those pics! Frame some, make a collage or print a photo book. It’s a great project and perfect for reliving the travel dreams. We love taking our instant camera on our adventures: we use the Fujifilm Instax 210 (it’s this one on Amazon) It’s quite a large camera so we also have the mini version of it!
5 | Take a staycation
Staycations rock! There’s a reason so many tourists visit your home country and it’s time to discover them. Book a night away, go and stay with a friend or take a road trip to somewhere awesome. Staycations are a great way to keep the wanderlust flowing!
6 | Watch an awesome travel movie
We’re obsessed. Travel movies are the most awe-inspiring way to spend an evening and are a regular fixture on our schedules. Our absolute favourite is Baraka which is the most beautiful collection of travel footage we’ve ever seen.
7 | Plan something fun at home
Sushi classes, a movie or a night out with friends are great ways to remind yourself of why you love where you live and ease you back into the swing of things!
8 | Read about travel
Travel blogs, magazines and books are an awesome resource and it’s the perfect place to escape in a world of travel. I love reading about the crazy adventures others are taking and love losing myself in their stories. If you are searching for the perfect travel blog to follow we can highly recommend The Whole World is a Playground, we’re reliably informed it’s the best travel blog in the world!
9 | Learn a language
Learning a new language is an awesome way to keep the travel vibes flowing. Pick a language from a country on your bucket list and get cracking. Even becoming familiar with the basic words to get through a travel day will make your trip even better when you do visit!
10 | Travel through food and drinks
Mexico City affirmed our love of Mexican food, Jordan made us obsessed with Middle Eastern cuisine and Thailand infinitely improved our spice loving taste buds. Italy fuelled our pizza obsession, Turkey made us crave kebabs and Rio taught us how hard it was to walk straight after 3 Caprihanas. And when we miss all those crazy, amazing places and their food? We book a table at one of the many restaurants in our city and relive our trip.
Our most important advice for getting over the travel blues!
We’ll leave you with our final, most valuable piece of advice. EMBRACE REAL LIFE. A holiday is a holiday. If we were permanently on holidays we wouldn’t be able to splurge on luxury travel (or we’d be totally broke), eat all the amazing local food (we’d be huge) and drink $2 dollar beers (every day is so not a good idea). A holiday is amazing experience but it’s our real lives that allow us the luxury of exploring the world. How could we not be thankful and enjoy them?
MOST OF ALL, REMEMBER THAT FEELING SAD JUST MEANS YOU HAD THE MOST INCREDIBLE TIME OF YOUR LIFE and that can never be a bad thing!
Travel blues, what travel blues?!
Great article, nothing worse than post holiday blues!
What a great post – and i can see myself doing many on the things on the list, just to get over the travel blues… Especially planning the next trip – that is always an ongoing project!
It has to be Rebecca, always need a trip in the pipeline! Glad you liked the post!
Elaine