My heart hurts when I think back to my most recent memories of wild nights out in Cambodia and the poverty-stricken families I’d see laying on the streets, or the dinners I shared with my friends in Qatar and my intense workshops at Al Jazeera English.
But whether we like it or not, good things must always come to an end. And boy, does travel go quickly. Looking back on my adventure, I honestly wouldn’t have changed a thing. My mind has been completely altered. I’ve become more open-minded, and I’ve overcome many of my fears.
Needless to say though, that while travelling can be one of the best experiences you’ll ever have in your lifetime, it sure does come with a few challenges along the way – many of which people are too afraid to talk about. And I want to change that.
1. You’ll become close with a lot of people and miss them when you come home
Humans crave connections, and when you’re stuck with a group of strangers – that is, if you happen to be travelling in a tour group – you’re pretty much forced to become close with your fellow travellers because you’ll practically be living and breathing with them for days, weeks or months on end.
The problem with this though is that your new friends most likely live in a different city or country to you, which makes saying goodbye at the end even harder. But whilst it’s hard to bid farewell to your special new family, you’ll have created a unique bond with each and every one of them and you’ll always have those special memories.
2. Homesickness will probably kick in at one point or another
If you’ve never suffered homesickness while travelling or living abroad, consider yourself lucky. During my time in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) and Doha, Qatar I was way too excited to feel homesick and honestly didn’t even think about what could have been going on at home while I was away.
On the last day, when my friend and I were going our separate ways, I found it incomprehensible that suddenly everything had just stopped. My first day in Vietnam was exhausting – we’d just come off three flights in a row and were to join a group of ten others who’d already been travelling together for the last 20 days.
By the third day of the tour, during our homestay in Cambodia, a bit of culture shock had set in too. Some homesickness began to creep up on me, which began to take a heavy toll on my mental health. On reflection, I wish I hadn’t wasted my time wishing to be home.
Homesickness does go away with time, and a bit of persistence in adapting to a new place. It’s really hard, I know, but as my next point proves it may actually be a blessing.
3. You’ll appreciate home
More often that not, coming home to Australia really makes you appreciate where you live. This is especially true if you visited historical sites or dark tourism spots. You might even get culture shock when you come home (depending on where you went).
That’s what happened to me when I returned from South East Asia on Monday. As a born and bred Aussie (but with heritage stemming from Indonesia) I’ve always been well aware of how lucky I am to call this beautiful land home.
Health, education, and living standards are all things that I know I definitely take for granted. But my two weeks in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam has really taught me life isn’t about having ‘things’, it’s about who you are as a person and the people you have in your life.
It’s easy to travel in a second or third world country because you know you’re only there temporarily and can come home to a luxurious life, but I hope that visitors in underdeveloped countries will at least come home with a better understanding of the world.
4. The come down is really, really hard
No one EVER talks about this and that really bothers me. We spend months, maybe years organising travel, but we never plan what to do once the trip is over.
Sure, we might organise taking some time off work and let our boss know when we can return, but we never think about the other responsibilities we have to go back to. More importantly, we never think about the fact that we come home as significantly different people, that arriving back home can feel different, boring, even depressing.
After travelling overseas four times in the last six years, I’ve now finally come to understand that having at least two days to rest and reflect on your trip once arriving at home is crucial. Your friends will also be asking about how amazing your time overseas was and you’ll tell them as much as you can, but there will always be this point of separation because they just weren’t there!
This can be an extremely isolating feeling. All you want to do when arriving home is tell everyone how great your trip was, but only the people you travelled with will really understand.
5. You’ll want to go back for more
There’s not much I can really say about this one. Past experiences have taught me that thirst for travel only grows and I’m sure that most people will agree with me. If you ever get the chance to travel, whether that is on a family vacation in your home country, a study exchange overseas, a well-deserved holiday anywhere across the globe or going to work abroad, I implore you to take up that chance.