I am currently on a month long journey visiting many places in Asia and in Europe. I’m only one week in and I am having bad home sickness. Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying my trip and I have fallen in love with the places I have been visiting, but I got tired of the food very quickly and have been lazy this first week. Is it wrong to feel this way? Am I falling out of love with traveling? Let me explain how I handle this and what to do when it happens to you. First thing you need to do is to realize that culture shock is a real thing. When traveling anywhere you are in a different culture and your going to experience some level of culture shock. I am the type of person that wants to sound cool and be able to say that I don’t experience culture shock, but if we’re all honest, we all see culture shock in different ways depending on where we come from and what our norms are. Once we face the fact that we will experience culture shock in some way or form it will help you get over this quicker. Second thing is get yourself some American food! I personally had to eat McDonald’s the last two days I was in Taiwan because to even think of the food there made me sick. I over loaded myself with trying all of the local food that I could and I got tired of it fast. The spices and way they cook is different than what I was used to, even from the way they cook Asian food back home. I felt horrible eating American food in a different country because I felt like I wasn’t getting the “full experience” of the culture. In reality, I had to realize that it is okay to take a break from emerging myself into the traditional culture, especially since I will have been traveling for a month. You don’t want to over do yourself and be miserable.
The third thing you want to do is go back to the reason why you came to where your traveling to. What made you want to visit where you are going? Was it the culture, a landmark, an event, or the people? Whatever the reason is, go back and make a list of what you expected out of your visit. Sometimes you loose your passion for where you are because of an experience you had or it just wasn’t what you expected. Going back to your starting point and looking at the big picture of your reason to travel will make you want to continue on. The fourth thing to do is to be in contact with your friends and family back home. If your traveling alone you can get lonely sometimes which makes you feel like no one cares about your travels or even remembers you. I always try to make a call to at lest one person a day when traveling and I always post pictures daily of my trip to keep everyone updated. Not only will this make you feel like your closer to home, but also it allows you to have people to support you while you are traveling. The fifth and last step to do is to realize how lucky and blessed you are to have the opportunity to do what you are doing. Maybe it is visiting Paris, France and seeing the Eiffel Tower, or in Bali hanging by the ocean, there is so many people who would love to have the opportunity to do what you are doing and learn more about the world so they can learn about themselves. It’s so easy to forget that you are on the other side of the world because it becomes apart of the norm in your life. But don’t forget where you come from and don’t forget how big of a deal your trip really is! These five things have helped me so much with feeling disconnected from the country and myself while traveling. Don’t ever feel bad for feeling homesick or experiencing culture shock; it’s a normal part of traveling. Just because you experience these things doesn’t mean you don’t like traveling and it doesn’t mean you want to go home. It’s apart of our normal human beings to experience these things. The way you handle it will make or break you so make sure you make good choices on how to handle yourself and don’t over do yourself or you will look back and not have as many great memories as you wish. Happy travels! See you around the world.
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