Homesickness in Paradise
It is official; my first week in Bali is over! The island itself is absolutely beautiful, but what most surprised me here is the people. Balinese people treat you like one of their own. They immediately take you into their family, no questions asked. But, unfortunately, being in literal paradise and surrounded by such nice people doesn’t change the fact that I have been feeling a bit homesick…
What is homesickness?
To be honest, I have no idea. I think everybody knows the feeling in one way or the other, but it is hard to describe. For some, it means family and friends, for others it means missing all the “normal” things you took for granted back home or not having a routine. For most people, the result is the same: I want to go home.
Homesickness can happen to everyone. Yes, even well-seasoned travelers can have a bout of homesickness every once in a while. There’s also no time limit on homesickness. Some people feel it the minute they touch down in a new place, others get overwhelmed after a few weeks or even a few months. It is perfectly normal and nothing to be ashamed of. Experiencing homesickness usually comes with blind panic and questions like, what am I doing here? Did I just make a huge mistake?
Again, all perfectly natural feelings, but it’s no fun of feeling like this when you are on your long-awaited vacation or finally moved abroad to your dream country. A feeling of homesickness can really screw up your day or week. So let’s see if we can do something about that, yes?
Take the pressure off
For me, homesickness is often related to some sort of obligation. This can be an appointment I’m dreading, the panic that comes with calculating how many more sleeps it is before I can fly home, or even just the pressure of you must have a good time, because you are in paradise.
Your mind is very good at guilt-tripping you into these sorts of thoughts. I mean, you saved all year for this vacation and now you’re feeling sad? This is literally your dream, you couldn’t shut up about it for weeks, and now you’re crying? Or another popular one, all these people on Facebook or Instagram are having such a good time in this place, why aren’t I?
No. Say fuck you to the rest of the world. You don’t have to do or feel anything. If you want to lie in your bed all day and cry, sure, go ahead. Mind you, giving in to the sadness won’t help you in the long run, but it can feel good in the short run to let all those emotions out. Have you been experiencing severe homesickness for several days or weeks and you see no other way out than to just fly home? Do it. Don’t let your mind or your friends or family guilt trip you into staying in a place you don’t want to be in. The only person who can hold you accountable is you, and if you feel like flying back home is the best decision for you, you just fly home.
What I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t have to do or feel anything you don’t want to. Homesickness does not equal failure! That’s right, I want you to read that again: homesickness does not equal failure. All feelings are natural. You can feel homesick in the morning and thrilled later in the afternoon because you found a familiar brand of cereal in the store. Take a step back and enjoy the ups, because I can promise you there will be downs again. Traveling and homesickness are an emotional rollercoaster that never stops and you just strapped in for the ride of your life.
Being in paradise doesn’t mean you have to feel happy and excited all the time. When you feel overwhelmed, try something you feel comfortable with. I see my hotel as a “safe bubble”, and luckily they have this great pool to lounge by!
Remember, this is just one moment
When I was in Corvallis, Oregon for my master’s thesis, I experienced extreme bouts of homesickness in the first few weeks. Like, millions of tears and you don’t want to know how many tissues. It paralyzed me, and I didn’t know what to do. All I wanted to do was to catch the first flight out, but I couldn’t because I had to finish my research there, and so I felt trapped. I desperately wanted to go home, but I couldn’t. It is a horrible feeling I never wish to experience again.
Now, 5 years later, I think back to my time in Corvallis as one of the best times in my life. Crazy, right? Even though I was feeling miserable half the time, the other half of the time I did have a good time. I learned so much about myself. I learned I was a strong, independent woman. I learned that if I wanted to, I could concur the world and nothing was going to stop me. I learned that solo traveling to a faraway country for a long time might not be for me right now (Huh, when did I forget this?).
Things also change. Homesickness makes you forget about the long-term prospects. It can be so overwhelming that you are only feeling the short time panic and forget about all the fun stuff you looked forward to. You could be feeling miserable on Monday and also become an entirely different person by Friday. Like I said, traveling is an emotional rollercoaster and you will go up and down and up and down and up and down… Every high and every low is just one moment in your ride and you won’t know until the train arrives back in the station how you really feel about it.
Listen to your heart
Listen to your heart, but try not to burst out into song like Roxette. The first step in accepting and overcoming homesickness is identifying all the feelings you are feeling. This means you will have to be brutally honest with yourself. Homesickness often comes with feelings of shame. Yes, I do feel a bit embarrassed writing about this now. I am in literal paradise and I feel sad. What is wrong with me? Am I weak? Am I spoiled? These are all questions that go through my mind.
These panic-induced questions can fill up your mind and make it hard to think about anything else but this horrible feeling inside yourself. Try to take a step back and analyze what exactly you are feeling. Do you miss family and friends? Give them a call. Do you miss a certain type of food? See if maybe they have it somewhere. Are you just overwhelmed by work or too much stuff to do? Take a day to do absolutely nothing.
I suggest bringing a diary or using your phone to write down all your feelings. Writing down your feelings will transport them from your head (heart) to the page. Not only will it make you feel better, but this is also a great way to document your emotional journey. I love reading my diary from when I was in Corvallis. It brings back all the good memories and also shows me how much I’d grown when I was over there. Getting in touch with yourself and your true feelings is an extremely important skill to have, and there is no better time than right now to try it.
The L-word of traveling
Loneliness. There, I’ve said it. Traveling can make you feel incredibly lonely. Being an introvert and extremely shy person, I hate it when people say to me that I just have to go outside and find like-minded people. Yes, I know that will make me feel better in that moment, but it takes such an amount of effort for me to drag myself out of the door, and afterward, I usually feel even worse because of the emotional drain of social interactions.
In this, solo traveling is both a blessing and a curse. Solo traveling forces you to meet new people, but it takes away the comfort of having somebody there that you are already familiar with. However, traveling with the wrong person is so, so much worse, so that’s why I’m still doing the whole solo travel thing, even though I find it rather difficult.
Are you not so socially awkward as me and looking for tips on meeting new people? Here’s a list of social “travel hacks” that could help you:
Check in a hostel for a few nights. Hostels are excellent breeding grounds for friendships.
Coffee shops, especially coworking or digital nomad cafes, are great for finding comfort with fellow travelers.
Join in a social activity. This can be a cooking class, a group trip, or a meeting with other expats. Even if you really don’t want to, remember this is only for a few hours. you can get through a few hours.
See if there is a travel café in your neighborhood. ViaVia is a great Belgian travel organization that has hostels and cafes in Honduras, Nicaragua, Argentina, Peru, Uganda, Morocco, Mali, Senegal, Indonesia, and Nepal!
Having a drink in a cafe or a coffee shop is a great way to get out of your own head and potentially meet new people.
It’s okay to change plans
I don’t believe in mistakes. There are only learning opportunities. Feeling bad is a sign that you found something you don’t like, so it is a learning opportunity and not a mistake. Sometimes our mind makes something seem perfect and amazing and exactly what we want, but then reality hits us in the face. That’s life. It happens to everybody. See it as a lesson learned.
When this happens to you, and I say when, not if, because I believe everybody will find themselves in this sort of situation one way or another during their lifetime, but when this happens to you, you must take a moment to re-evaluate what you truly want. Say you are on the trip of a lifetime or you just moved to your dream destination, but you are just not feeling it. There are two options: you can muscle through and hope it will get better, or you can listen to your heart and change plans. If you decide to muscle through, try to fully commit. Read all the blogs about homesickness (like you are doing right now, good job!) and expat life and ways to make new friends in a foreign country and just go for it. It can take days or even weeks and there is no guarantee you will indeed feel better, but just imagine the scenario that you do feel better and that your dreams truly come true.
There is also the other option. What if you are so miserable that you start to experience physical symptoms like panic attacks or anxiety? There’s no shame in that. This is just your body telling you there is something wrong and you need to fix it. Or what if you’ve tried all the above things to make it better, but it’s just not working? That’s also okay.
Traveling or moving abroad isn’t for everyone. While it looks nice on social media, the reality of long-term travel or moving abroad is really, really hard.
So you pivot. You change your plans. I highly suggest that if you do book a flight back home, give yourself at least another week. The mindset of knowing your trip is about the end can have a huge effect on your emotions. In this way, you can take advantage of an amazing last week to do all kinds of fun things and end your trip on a positive note. Worst-case scenario, your homesickness doesn’t go away after you booked your flight home, but now you only have to sleep a few more nights before you can go back home.
The “take-home” message
Homesickness is perfectly natural and it happens to everybody, whether or not they admit it. Take a deep breath and allow yourself to feel all your feelings. If you want to burst out in tears, do it. It will do you no good trying to hold in all in. Trust me, it will come out at the worst possible time, like when you are watching a gorgeous sunset at the beach or eating a splendid dinner at a restaurant. So take a moment to let all those feelings out.
Good, now that the initial panic is gone a bit, try to get in touch with what you are feeling. Do you miss your family and friends? Are you in need of some familiar food or a routine? Are you feeling lonely? Homesickness is a very difficult feeling to pin down because it means something different for everybody. I still haven’t figured out what exactly it is for me, but I can best describe it as missing my favorite foods and a familiar “homebase” to come back to.
Once you’ve identified what you are feeling, you can try some “travel hacks” to feel better. Call your family or friends, go out to a café or a coffee shop, or try a social activity like a cooking class or join a gym.
If the above tips don’t work, or if the feeling is just too overwhelming, just change your plans. There are no such things as mistakes, only learning moments. Maybe you learned you didn’t like this country, that the trip is too long or that solo travel isn’t for you. Those are all good things to discover about yourself because now you know yourself a little better and you can plan accordingly for your next trip. Good luck!