This piece was not written by myself but I couldn’t have said it better. The words epitomise a strong undercurrent I have been feeling for a while. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, that yearning I still feel five months after completing my trip.
If you’ve ever traveled extensively or taken a journey into the unknown, welcome to the group of lost individuals who will never be truly understood. Read below…
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The Hardest Part of Travelling that No One Talks About by Kellie Donnelley
Off the Beaten Track 
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This is a great post. Really nails the feeling.
I’ve been there myself.
You often hear about soldiers coming home, and not being able to integrate back into their communities.
It’s the same effect. Freedom. Some of us were just not built for standing still.
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Where ever you go, there you are.
Love that song by Clint black!
What song are you talking about?
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I believe there are different types of travelers. Those who have the choice anf therefore it’s a luxury and those who do it as a necessity to survive. it’s easy for those who have family friends and financial security to come back to. These people can enjoy the new experiences to the fullest. But when there is nobody or ‘home’ to fall back on this is what going into the unknown is. I choose this life, it’s stressful, lonely and definitely not what’s typically published about traveling but despite the hard times I feel grateful that I’ve seen some of the most beautiful not yet tarnished by man places and hope to see many more as long as my health allows 🙂
I’m looking at it as a necessity to survive.
I can relate to that………so much.
I’m more of a wanderer than a traveller. I was homeless when I left ‘home’. In my heart I’d been homeless since childhood, and it finally became a reality due to the wonderful austerity politics of my ‘home’ country, which fails to provide a future for so many of us.
I went away for a year, and never went back. Always had the feeling that I hadn’t found what I was looking for, that I’d failed in some mysterious way. My travels have taken me to all sorts of places in the effort to figure it out, and I’ve experienced joy and pain, I’ve fallen in love and had my heart shattered into tiny pieces, I’ve had high hopes and great prospects, and I’ve watched my dreams fall apart, and I’ve got up, dusted myself off, and tried a new direction.
I finally realised that what I’ve been looking for all this time is a place to call home, and that I can only find that place inside of myself. There’s no way around it. You can be in paradise, and still feel something missing if you’ve never learned how to be at home in your own skin. Home really is where the heart is, and I’m finally learning to be at home in my own heart.
Well Done Libby. That’s Exactly where Home is and how you settle. Hope you find ALL you Deserve 😃
❤ thank you for this honest and poetic post. it really touches my heart. this has been the reason why I went away – same old reason, they call it finding yourself. Maybe findinng yourself again, rediscovering your self.
I can really relate to this 🙂 you took the words right out of my mouth!
Nice one 👍
I couldn’t agree with you more. I myself still travel to this day. I don’t have family to fall back on. No friends “back home” at first I did choose to live this life style but now its something I have to do to be able to live. I’m in a wheelchair now with 2 wonderful dogs that keep me safe at my most vonrable moments. That are now the only family I have.
Love an light, sista A
I hope that someday you will write about it; it sounds like you’re doing something different from most of us wanderers and wanna-be-wanderers. I’d love to hear more about your adventures and your insights!
I really hope that you’ll write about your travels someday; I’d like to hear more. Sounds like you have a great sense of adventure and some powerful insight.
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I don’t agree.
First, travel imparts a tremendous flexibility that is seamlessly blend with the regular life. Of course there is an exception. You travel like luxury tourist and come back to home, you never change.
Second, personally I like meeting people , for a brief time and pass it away. In a regular life, friends and families are good, but all in a selfish loop. Emotional expectation , physical expectations, mental and sometimes financial..this attachment is itself a sort of sickness.
Third, this is a typical city sickness, finding utility out of every thing . it is obviously foolish idea to involve in some romantic folly and to travel aimlessly and return back with burnt pockets ..but it is equally stupidity that you come back home and ask yourself what I lost what I gained.those decisions should be taken before , once you travel, you live for experience. Those experiences will remain with you , carry with you till your death bed, those experience will shape the life.
And the award for missing the point goes to . . .
Good one!
Isn’t it important to have someone back home to share those experiences with? With someone who will recognize the change in you, and actually show that you being gone and then back again is relevant and noticed? Because if that’s not the case than why come back home at all?
Also, I don’t see how you can say it’s city sickness, people always learn, seek and nurture new experiences and things in life. Around us and somewhere far away. And we all use every new experience in our life. Because, why seek them and go threw them if we are only going to reflect them?
I’ve been exploring this idea alot myself, I’ve read about it alot for people that have done a Camino and long periods away but I’ve also experienced it following a fairly short trip. It’s like waking up out of the foggy haze of day to day life and becoming acutely aware of who we are and our true nature…seeing life clearly, it is almost frightening because once you experience it there is no going back, and it can lead to the need for life altering change!
Agree 100%!
It’s a bit irritating to read. Of course you get these kinds of feelings. But you are writing this as if everyone who doesn’t travel around the world can’t evolve, grow within themselves. Other people who have chosen to stay in the lame home town (as you described it) may have been through the same change as you have in one way or another, but you don’t notice it just like all the others don’t on yourself.
I have been a traveller, I loved that part of me and plan on going on the road again. For now, I’m back home and I see the people around me and how they have grown like I have.
MDR is dead on. Traveling can be a wonderful spiritual education but it isn’t all there is, and I believe “real life” happens primarily wherever one calls home, works a job, nurtures relationships and establishes community. Those boring people who stayed likely have real responsibilities keeping them from an entire year of travel, and to say that they don’t grow because they were working, paying off debt, taking care of loved ones and living life in its hard realities aren’t growing is a joke. If you only grow as a person when you’re traveling, then you’re a bit like someone who constantly tries to “grow” through reading self-help books; you have no real self to tear down and analyze because you’ve been constantly self-analyzing in stead of actually establishing a self. Traveling forever is not a life style, it’s a fantasy. Hey, if you can get paid to travel, more power to you, but don’t kid yourself that you are more in touch with reality. That’s a fluke and it literally is not available to most.
Also, changing one’s self radically is easier done when one can externalize the change, such as with a change in scenery and culture. You travelers are right about that. However you are too smug to realize that it’s much more difficult but no less necessary to make radical change in your life WITHIN your life, while you’re living it, at home; and people do this all the time whether you see it or not. Just because they didn’t go dirtbag around Europe and catch the clap from some high-minded trust fund douchbag doesn’t mean they’re stupid, and will never understand you. I’ve been all over the world, but I believe many of the smartest people I know have not. They work to be good at something, to be good to their loved ones and responsible for them, be of use to their community. Get off your high horse and do something. Try speaking the “language” of self work around home, and don’t be surprised if someone speaks it back to you.
One last thing. If your only passion is for travel, and you work a little here and there to make it happen, you will NEVER be good at anything except hostel schmoozing, procuring drugs in strange places and dealing with border guards. Not that those skills are without value. But it is by doing something every day for years, maybe with small vacations here and there, that you really learn a trade. Trades are those things that all those people had in those quaint and pastoral villages you visited and thought were so magical you never wanted to leave. Try working on a farm. Not WOOFING, working. Two years. Give it that and then talk to me about growth.
Exceedingly well said. Did you leave this post on the original link? This is a repost for page clicks and a youtube advertisement… which I shouldn’t knock too much since I’ll put my own videos up soon :p
Thank you. I completely concur. You have said everything I felt when reading her “story”
Completely agree, I think a another comment also mentioned that, even back home you’d find people ‘who get it’. Travelling’s not as alternative as you might think now. About half the people I knew at college have done some prolonged travelling, but I’m not really close friends with any of them now. I’ve had a couple of 6 month stints living abroad, one overwhelmingly positive and one slightly less so.
I have a new group of friends in my home city, some of them are from other countries but live here now, others have ‘travelled’ in the past and some have only been able to go on holidays for 2-3 weeks at a time. Many of them now run businesses, another is running for local councillor. We are being involved in our community and are looking to improve the city to make it somewhere that we want to live and work in – the hostels and bars and farms you encounter on your travels wouldn’t be what they are unless people were committed to to where they lived and prepared to put themselves on the line and run them.
Completely agree, I think a another comment also mentioned that, even back home you’d find people ‘who get it’. Travelling’s not as alternative as you might think now. About half the people I knew at college have done some prolonged travelling, but I’m not really close friends with any of them now. I’ve had a couple of 6 month stints living abroad, one overwhelmingly positive and one slightly less so.
I have a new group of friends in my home city, some of them are from other countries but live here now, others have ‘travelled’ in the past and some have only been able to go on holidays for 2-3 weeks at a time. Many of them now run businesses, another is running for local councillor. We are being involved in our community and are looking to improve the city to make it somewhere that we want to live and work in – the hostels and bars and farms you encounter on your travels wouldn’t be what they are unless people were committed to to where they lived and prepared to put themselves on the line and run them.
This comment is so inaccurate! I can completely relate to the first post and that completely sums up how I felt when I went travelling. I travelled to Australia on my own when I was 21. I saw the whole country and had the time of my life. I chose a place I loved and I stayed in a very small country town. After a year I had to come home home so I was 2 years away from my family and friends and returned to a completely different lifestyle that I was no longer happy with. To state that going travelling you do not have any skills and hotel staying is completely inaccurate!! I had a really good job before I left which I had built up and did very well for myself without any help from others I may add-all from my own hard work. I worked in Australia for 14 hour days outside and was loving life. To say people don’t work hard is completely inaccurate. I came home from travelling with double the amount I left with!!! I came home and picked my job up where I left but could only take another 6 months before I has to leave because nobody viewed the same ideologies as me and had an aspirations! It’s ridiculous to say that not everyone gets the chance to travel. It’s personal choice to get a damn job, have a family, get married. You don’t have to do it! I worked very hard to be where I am and every decision I have made it has been for me. I don’t want kids right now. I want my life and live it, then I can settle down. It’s people’s own choice to do everything and it’s not a case of luck!
I have now been back from travelling for 3 years and the feeling of veins lost never goes away! Yes I have bills, a house, a partner. But like hell that’s going to stop me from doing what I want to do.
One life. Bloody live it. Majority of people are just too damn scared of following their passions. Life’s too short.
Even if you go on holiday for a couple of weeks you end up coming back feeling dazed and often feel a sense of longing for a few days on return. If you go travelling for months then is this feeling not just amplified?
And sorry, but no – not everyone can go ‘travelling’. Many counties have such a high cost of living that even an initial plane ticket would be a huge expense. Unemployment is rife in many countries – to suggest that anyone can just pick up work abroad at a drop of hat, let alone in their countries of origin is ridiculous.
My previous employer’s went bust owing me half a year’s unpaid salary. I’ve been unemployed for 6 months following that and am now working part time for minimum wage. I so no, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to go ‘travelling’ even if I wanted to. I volunteer in the city I live in, and am quite happy contributing to the local community and have a great group of friends here.
The idea that you’d need to live in a country you didn’t grow up in in order to have some kind of superior quality of life or some kind of enlightenment is bullshit. What difference would it have made if you’d been born in Australia, would you then have to have work in Thailand to achieve your ideal? I’ve probably not visited 80% of the country I’m from but for some reason domestic experiences aren’t held in such high regard.
A change in lifestyle is always difficult, but this ideal that people who’ve lived abroad are somehow superior or can’t mingle with ‘normal’ people is rubbish. If you took the time to get to meet more people back home you might find that more of them have similar feelings, I suspect that many of the people who relate to the original article are going home to a small circle of narrow minded friends. If you really got involved in your local community you’d find other people who’d lived abroad, or who are living abroad as well as a whole host of people who find pleasure int their surroundings and who can be content without always feeling that the grass is greener on the other side.
you fucking legend, im in australia atm and am meant to be starting uni in september, i hate every thought of going to some posh uni and getting a job and doing what everyone tells me, whats the point, as you said, life is too fucking short. but if i dont take this place, which im lucky to have, i doubt ill get it again. maybe a couple of years down the line ill need that degree. ive only just turned 19 so i have nothing to fall back on if i ever need to make a living for myslef. you seem wise and my kind of person, what is your advise
Awesome!!! I feel the same way, it a choice, I went to Australia for 2 months and ended up staying 4 years, after that I was getting ready to head back to the states and didn’t really want to fortunately I got a job offer to go to the Micronesian Islands where i needed up living for 7 years, in those seven years I was able to travel a lot of South East Asia, after that stint I moved to Hawaii where I worked for 6 years before moving back to the states,I have been back 5 years and everyday I am ready to pack my bags and go back overseas.
Life is short, live it, is absolutely right and like you said it is a persons choice of what they want to do.
Clearly Alex you haven’t traveled if this is your view on the subject. 6 months unpaid salary? Your an idiot for continuing to work that long without payment. Go on an extended trip overseas and work somewhere different around a new culture and try and repeat what you just posted
Good job. I totally related to primary post and couldn’t believe.the negative rant mainly by people who couldn’t relate probably because they didn’t have the guts to.do it.
I´m going to copy your brilliant response on the place I found this link in the first place!
Well said!
Cullen, You gave a very good rebuke to this article with good points. That being said, you’ll get people to listen more if you try saying it in a way that doesn’t completely bash people that thought otherwise. I actually see your points and hadn’t thought about it the way you did so I enjoyed analyzing what you said. Just a tip for the future though, you catch more flies with hunny than vinegar 🙂
Assuming the aim of life is to ‘be good’ at something is the mark of someone who has been nowhere and in fact validates the OP point about people not understanding.
Do 6 months in the Amazon without medical supplies then talk to me about growth.
Great post. Just curious though, did you get permission to repost this article word for word from the author? Google rankings do not like having the same content in multiple places so you really have to ask before you republish someone else’s content. Just in case you didn’t know! Blog etiquette and all.
Indeed. All of these comments should be directed to the original post.
Perhaps it is not about travelling but resolving something deep inside you that allows you to find peace and beauty wherever you are.
I was only 24 yrs old when I left home..left Belfast ni.came to chicago..I only wanted to stay for a year get a better job which I did more money an apt & going to work everyday was ok but coming back to the apt was depressing..I tried to make it as cheerful & bright but I missed my family so much..eventually I met a guy who worked at the same office.we dated for a yr.& asked me to marry him.idi & 51 yrs later here we are.in love
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As an exchange student…even it it was 20 years ago I agree…except for the last part “we all run away again.”.
Make sure you never run away but to something and second of all I have found people that understand being a volunteer for the exchange organisation I went abroad with. It’s strange you meet those people and they get it…you might not like all of them…but they get it.
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The hardest part of travelling is when you have to leave everything behind and return home. Then you are happy to see, and spend that time with family ,however in your heart there is always that desire to always go back some where. I have traveled most of my life and at times if you don’t go anywhere you feel that void to travel somewhere again. In view of that our steps are ordered by god and whever he leads you follow. Travelling is always educational and so you give out when u are in another man’s world therefore you wuld recieve so much that you can bring back home and share. Take the knowledge you have received, and use it in a very positive manner. If coming back from your expedition , and your soul is not at rest maybe it’s meant for an individual to keep travelling until you feel that goal accomplishment has been fulfilled deep within your soul. Remember wherever you go be that light that God calls you to be. It’s all about giving out your time to bless someone and receiving as well. Traveling is knowledgeable and all positive. Even though returning home can be difficult with the guidance from god one would return with a positive feedback and return fully at peace. Take time to cogitate on what was the most significant momentum, and spiritual experience throughout ones expedition, and endeavour to assist , uplift your friends and family throughout your return. Never feel fear cause at some time it must be faced whatever ponders our soul. Deal with the returning home syndrome, and become that light ,sight and voice to others who never had the opportunity as you and me to see the other side of the world. Thank god for the opportunity, and his protection so that if it’s his will for you to go again he would order your steps once more. I love travelling and I’m so grateful for the opportunity because these trips has played a very significant role throughout my entire life, in terms of my thinking, spiritual walk, and in how I view society.
im 19 and a currently in australia. in september i am meant to be going home to go to university, its a good university that im lucky to have a place at. but i dont want that life (or at least i think i dont) what should i do – can i have your email and have a chat? i honestly need some guidance
Josh, absolutely go back and get that degree. As a serial expat, I can tell you that having a degree gives you many more options for living and working abroad. It’s much easier to get visas and jobs, where you have to prove you’re better qualified than a local. Not to mention, travel is one path to personal growth and development, but college/university is another huge path to opening your eyes and changing yourself for the better. It’s not just the classes, but the friends and the other organisations you get involved with that open many more doors. You can always travel more during and after your degree; travel is never a one-time opportunity.
Beautiful…
I have just come back from one year away, and three weeks after returning, I (luckily) find myself on the travels again… I guess it takes some time to get used to being in one place again. And yes, I agree with some people who has commented on this post with a little bit of negativity, because not travelling does not necessarily mean that you are a boring person with no aims in life… But yes, it is very true from my personal perspective, that back at home, no one really understands you and no one understands how that year away has changed you in so many shapes and forms…. Perhaps that is the hardest part of being back… not being able to communicate with anyone…
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This just sounds like the views of a very self centred attention seeker!! You need to understand the world doesn’t revolve around you!! Who ever wrote this was probably a spoilt brat as a kid and only travelled to the basic tourists zones every kid living off there parent’s money go!!
Hahahaha was thinking the same thing. Get a life people. Sorry you’re not the center of attention after 2 weeks. How egocentric!
It is very very true, you can not go home again. At first you think friends and places have changed while you were gone, but after a while you realize it is YOU. Not only are you different, changed, but the way you react to people, places, situations has changed dramatically. You will never be the same and no one warned you! Home has a new and different meaning.
…and if you don’t go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life !
GO BABY GO !
just when you though you were alone in these thoughts! So well put. TFS!
That is very selfless to depend on the recognition of your changes from others. Shouldn’t it be enough that you know that you changed? I don’t see the purpose of traveling if you need others to recognize the changes in you when you return home…
my god. i thought i was the only one feeling like this. so thankful im not alone. thank you for putting words on feelings in times when i couldn’t.
Safe travels
/Sandra
This is hilarious: ‘back to your childhood bedroom’. If you had a real career and prospects you wouldn’t be in that situation. Maybe you should have sorted your out priorities before wasting your potential and galavanting around the globe… Don’t complain about the mess you made for yourself. I can travel without that worry because I have a decent life and career to come back to.
Oh so true. Creating that tribe of like minded souls around you that feed your addiction is vital IMHO. Sustaining forward momentum is key to grow a great life.
Wauw. Amen
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Awesome read! I totally agree! 😀
I think something that is implicit in what the author is getting at is the difference between vacationing and traveling where you stay in a place and negotiate life for an extended period of time.
You have to look at the travel experience as a personal thing done for you. It is your secret, your inner development, people can’t easily notice what’s inside you.
Try not to look for satisfaction from people’s attitudes and reactions but rather from an inner peace that you gain through patience, humbleness and perspective.
I agree somewhat with what this article, which says about returning home. We often feel like a stranger when we return home!! It can be difficult to imagine to reinvent our lives in our home country again! However, I liked some of the comments, where it said that the people who live in their home countries have more to offer their communities and lives there. When we return to our home country, we can often be treated like Outsiders or Strangers. It seems unfair but it is reality!! We need time to re-adapt to our home countries again and we need to be ready to accept the changes there. It is possible to start there again, as a New Person 🙂
I would definitely agree with this.
I spent a year away, having the most amazing time, but once I got home, things just went downhill. After about 2 months I learned to cope with it back home, and just accept the fact that people around me won’t have the patience to even try to understand me.
I tried to look for other foreign people in my country, who I could bond with, who I could share these stories with, and I found a few good people among them. Life was great again for a while, having a blast with foreign people in my country, telling them about my country and where I’ve traveled. But then they have to leave my country, for one reason or the other, and I felt left alone again.
I still yearn to leave again, but haven’t managed to decide where to go yet, nor when. And right now, cause I am a very active person, I have multiple responsibilities that I can’t just leave.
Feels good to have read how someone else had the same experience as me….
massively relatable to myself! i travelled south east asia in 2013 and three years on i struggle to stay motivated in this western world of the UK, everybody is rushing around me and i feel like i’m standing dead still, it’s the fact that my expectations have been diminished, i care for nothing but my careful use of time for the fulfillment of my existence, yet there’s so much expectation around me in this environment that i’m considered the ‘lost’ one when actually its vice versa! It’s a great eye opener to see so many people less fortunate but with a much larger and positive outlook to their existence, that’s simply because they have no expectations, therefore they have no worries! Thank you for sharing this piece of text! JJ x
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Oh man. I just wrote two posts on this topic. One on the “privilege” of travel and the confusion of it:
http://www.tinyjewelstories.com/home/2016/5/30/vanilla-skies
and the second on the aftermath of coming home:
http://www.tinyjewelstories.com/home/2016/7/21/theremusthavebeensomethinginthewater
I get it. I get it all.
Nice blog post! 🙂
I understand what you are saying & agree to a point. But if the reason you went, you saw, you liked & you learned the decision is yours to stay or go. Back home there are many ways you can help your own community with what you learned. I’m older and did quite a bit of international travel in the late 80’s & early 90’s. Great experiences & places I have returned because they left that stamp on me.
Be thankful for the opportunity that thousands do not have. Find a way to use what you learned. Something as simple as a presentation to children. Or get involved in a project that you saw made a lot of sense while traveling as opposed to how it is done in the U.S.
Last, if you choose to live in your hometown you will find yourself in a conversation where you are reminded of a trip and you share. People that haven’t travelled are likely to be very interested. Photos are a must to get the point across.
Be the eyes and ears for someone else.
You don’t have to be like others when you return. Keep your spirit up and maintain the changes you have learned. If you make yourself aware enough, you will realize that there are others who “speak the same language” as you.
From experience !
I can’t believe it… Finally, how I feel after every single trip is perfectly described in this article. It is not I don’t love or miss my family and friends… it is not I don’t care about them or love to spend time with them… it is just the “travel bug”.. due to be sourroended by people who doesn’t experience the same…
What a load of narcissistic crap. People not wanting to make your experiences the focus of their life is normal.
Well…I am really lucky that I have been living in my dream since my journey began..Haven’t been back since, almost 4 years…and I believe that I have not ready for returning and will never be…I totally agree the theory in the essay.
However, I don’t give a shit about what those people think and talk in my hometown, nobody needs to understand what and who really I am. Have a good time and leave, end of story.
I am not living in anybody’s life, my path belongs to me only.
We..Mum is an exception tho..She understands and support me!
wow , love this , it is exactly how I feel and I could not put it into words for my family to be able to better understand me , definitely sharing this with them 🙂 ,GREAT WRITING , Thank you
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I have been home for two years now, and this post made me realize why I want to leave again.
You sound like all the travellers I’ve met that have been ‘lost’ on the road for years. There comes a point when you’ve seen enough and experienced it and it’s time to move on to the next stage of your life. There’s no need to read into it this much, to be deeply spiritual about it or to judge others who haven’t had the luxuries that we have had.
It’s of course up to the individual if they choose to live on the road but I think these people are far more boring than the people back home who’ve never experienced foreign lands. To be a gringo who’s been on the road for a decade searching for himself is to be a loner, with no trade and no strong relationships – the only things that really matter in life.
You’ve finished your trip, cherish the memories but don’t dwell on it so much and create some kind of bullshit shield around yourself because you don’t think anyone else ‘understands’ you. It’s all made up hippie crap that transcends society these days and there’s no bloody need for it.
Exactly how i feel right now. So on point! Thank you!