Over the past few weeks as travelers have either returned home or found places to make their home for the foreseeable future, I’ve been thinking a lot about how grateful I am to have a home right now – something that really I should be better at feeling grateful for every day of my life.
But settling down after so many years as a nomadic backpacker wasn’t exactly an easy transition. I wrote this list of awkward things that happen when you return home from backpacking a year or so after settling down following my last big backpacking trip. And today I looked back at it thinking how crazy would it be to go through all of this now, when you’re literally stuck at home?
1. You’re a bit scared of sleeping in a room alone now – where are your 11 dorm-mates?
2. You wear your elephant pants all day everyday.
3. You don’t recognize any of the music playing on the radio.
4. You’re like, so over television. Until you aren’t and you binge watch all the episodes of your favorite series that you missed while away in the space of a single weekend.
5. You begin way too many sentences with “that totally reminds me of that time in Tajikistan when…” and everyone on your Zoom chat rolls their eyes.
6. You accidentally eat 12 avocados (or bagels, or tacos, or whatever it was you craved abroad) because ohmygoodness you missed them so much on your travels and suddenly your jeans are mysteriously way too small.
7. And while shopping for those avocados you realize you don’t recognize a lot of the food in the supermarket now. Like you knew about cauliflower rice, but what’s cauliflower gnocchi?
8. Sometimes you’ll listen to your old backpacking playlist on your iPod and have a little cry, just because.
9. Your friends think you’ve returned a bit weird and now you’re exchanging an awkward number of Facebook messages with that Danish guy from your hostel who you totally thought was creepy but now seems to be the only person who really gets what you’re going through.
10. You suddenly have zero career goals but are somehow already saving for your next big trip.
11. You realize you’ve become sort of freakishly strong from lifting your 60 lb backpack.
12. You’ll zone out of conversations and then awkwardly explain that, sorry, you were just thinking about that time in Bali when… ugh, never mind.
13. You keep mentally converting prices into Thai baht, which means you never want to buy anything ever again.
14. You find yourself scrolling lovingly through your Instagram feed a little too often.
15. It’s just above freezing outside, yet you still insist on wearing your flip flops everywhere.
16. You can’t remember how to do small talk that doesn’t start with “so how long have you been on the road?”
17. You realize your backpacking tan has almost disappeared and have a little sob in the shower.
18. You spend way too much time in Facebook groups for travelers giving people tips on places you’ve been, and secretly pretending that you’re still a backpacker yourself.
19. Late one night you book a flight to Colombia for 2021. We’ll be able to travel again by then, right? Right?
Do you agree? Or have anything to add?
Jocelyn says
Numbers 4 and 15 are totally me! lmao so accurate
Silvia says
Haha yeah every time I go backpacking I return thinking I’m so over television, and then I always end up going back to it.
Sahil says
You get post vacation blues, where your corporate life seems pointless and you yearn to be back on the road, day-dreaming about new travel destinations all day long.
Silvia says
Aaah yes, I wish I didn’t feel the same but I totally do!
Lisa says
This is hysterical and so true. I am a 54 year old kind of backpacker and mother of four grown children. I abandon my angelic homebody husband for a few months at a time a couple of times a year. No one at home can understand why I have to have my next journey planned before I even leave for the current one. It also seems like things at home are more shallow..hard to explain when I’ve travelled to such off the beaten path places…life is just different. Also…yes….gotta get on the road before my tan fades….that’s my philosophy! Oh…and why are there no $5.00 massages/pedicures in San Fransisco??
Silvia says
That sounds like a pretty perfect life to me! I also totally freak out if I come home from a trip and don’t have another one planned already, haha.
Lisa says
So true…I am perfectly blessed. I am in the far North of Vietnam now for harvest time. The beauty is staggering ❤
Nynke says
I’m not a backpacker at all (except I really love backpacks), but 9 sounds so sad and true, and 13 is so funny!
Silvia says
Converting prices into baht is the worst! Especially when you live in Norway, aaaah.
Kelly says
Colombia?! Is that really happening?! I’m so jealous!
Also, number 8 is SO me. I literally have a playlist on my iTunes called “Central America” and whenever I listen to it I get ridiculously nostalgic and can’t even handle it. Also, how about keeping up with friends you met on your backpacking trip who are STILL traveling while you’re at home? That kills me.
Isak says
Hi! I’m 16(gr.11), have a part time job and was wondering what you would do for a summer backpacking trip(solo and/or friends part of the way not sure yet)? Conditions: Price would be a years worth of part time, a sort of beginner route/region that would be a good first experience in terms of getting into travelling, and yeah! 😀 Thanks a bunch and Id love to see what you have to say! -From a proud Norwegian raised(for the most part) in Toronto,Canada (shoutouts to Bergen!) Thanks! 🙂
maud says
hey ! I would totally recommend New Zealand for that, or just the east of CA, come meet us on the french side 😉 !
Katie @ the tea break project says
Haha – this is so true! Especially watching your travel tan slowly fade… I also get really bad at grocery shopping for any period longer than about 3 days after I’ve been on the road. I sort of forget that it’s normal to be in one place for long enough to buy freezer food & large boxes of cereal. :-/
Kiara Gallop says
5, 10, 13, and 16! And I still wear my elephant pants now, years after I returned from backpacking! Hey, they’re comfortable and quite frankly I don’t care what anyone else thinks 😉
ellis veen says
Yes. I can relate to almost all of your experiences. I loved reading this
Cliodhna says
This is scarily accurate! Its 15 degrees out and I’m still wearing flip flops and flowy trousers. Ive been home a month and have already booked flights to Greece and Paris despite having a full time job. This made me laugh 🙂
Stacey says
This is such a great read!
Tara says
YES! Every.single.one! I am currently binging on you tube top 40 play lists and Netflix haha
Happily Tanned says
I can relate to 8, 10 and 11.
I have never gone for a backpacking tour but all my backpackers friend have told their stories. They have mentioned almost everything that you have mentioned in the post.
The post was fun to read 🙂
Danielle - GeekGirlGoes says
Oh my word, this is scarily accurate…and I only backpacker for 3 weeks. God knows sweat I’d be like after a long trip! Haha. My elephant pants will never be silenced!!
Allison says
Oh man this list is great! Equal parts funny and painfully true. I’m going home for a one-month break in a few months and I’m already nervous about socializing with non-backpacker humans! So afraid of #5 and #16 especially. I’m now champion of small talk! What am I going to do when I go back home and have to think of like, real topics instead of my standard set of five questions I ask all strangers?
runawaybrit says
Ha ha! Yep, all of these – well, except for #1 as I don’t ever stay in dorms!!
#3 made me laugh – about a week after I returned home from a year living in Japan, I ended up randomly getting in a taxi with 3 guys I didn’t know (our train had broken down, so passengers shared taxis the rest of the way). A song came on the radio, and I said ‘oooh! This song is great. What is it?’ All 3 guys and the taxi driver turned to stare at me and said ‘where the hell have you been living the last 6 months?!’. The song was Beyonce ‘Crazy in Love’ and had apparently been played on repeat everywhere in the UK for months. Then I told them that I had actually been living in Tokyo for the last year, and they thought that was pretty cool 😀
Victoria @The British Berliner says
Great post Silvia! Yep! Totally agree!
Nr. 4 – I hardly watch TV these days and anyway, I live in Germany and TV is pretty crap here so….! Having said that, I don’t watch TV in my nice boutique hotels either, unless for the fun value like when I went to Vietnam and the TV stations were all in Russian. Or when I went to India and watched MTV India. It was so funny! American TV was the big one though. Hilarious! Especially, the adverts. Sigh!
Nr. 11 – I’m freakishly strong. I once went to Scotland without my husband, and with as of then, toddler in tow, and my backpack, plus child’s bacpack, plus laptop, plus buggy, plus bag of toys were so heavy, my husband almost keeled over. when he came to pick us up at the station! Oh, and I used to run with everything on my bag. Including my child too lol!
Luckily for me, I have travel-all-over-the-world friends, and I have if-it-isn’t-in-a-country-where-the-natives-speak-my-language-and-I-can-still-get-a-sausage-then-I’m-not-leaving-my-doorstep friends. I don’t judge lol!
Silvia says
Haha wow, you must be strong! I totally think traveling really builds up endurance – like when we have to run with luggage, haha.
Enni Maria - Denia Hania says
Well that was super accurate! Especially the last one as I did exactly that! Thanks for sharing!
Silvia says
Haha that’s awesome!
Mary B says
Hahaha, yep! Also – you walk out of the grocery store empty-handed because TOO MANY CHOICES FOR PEANUT BUTTER. Like seriously, no one needs that many choices. How am I supposed to pick one (especially when they’re all so expensive in Thai baht!) ?
Silvia says
Haha oh my goodness, so true!
Kymber says
YES! All of this!!
Also: You try to order food speaking in Spanish
And: You feel really isolated and foreign in your own hometown
Silvia says
Ahahaha at speaking the wrong language, I’ve totally done that!
Hailey says
Funny how accurate you are with this 😛 Especially the last one, I’m in Colombia right now 🙂
Silvia says
aah that’s amazing!
Carly Klineberg says
My sister did her dissertation for her anthropology degree on traveling, comparing it to previous studies of “coming of age” initiations of travel in certain cultures and how it shapes individuals and their societies. She wanted to explore (as someone who had traveled alone and long term herself) where travel fits in in our culture and the effect it has on people. She completed over 60 in depth and detailed interviews with people who had traveled (preferably alone and for over 3 months). Every single person she interviewed bar one, no matter where they went, had the same stages of experiences when they were away and also when they returned. I’m about to begin a series of blog posts based on that dissertation about what she found, and why the findings are so important. Ps, nice blog! I’m bookmarking you now 🙂
Louise says
#13!! Although all of these resonate so well!! Absolutely love your blog!
Silvia says
Aaaah thanks!
Treavor of the Cerulean Union says
The feels. I’m hella overdue for a backpacking trip or a return to Costa Rica (backpackers paradise) or both.
Kimberley says
I have lived 4, 5, 6, 11, 13 & 14!
I was really shocked by the fact that loved ones would really prefer it if you don’t talk about your travel. It’s as if any mention of a continent where you spent the last 2 years of your life is seen as supreme bragging and you should shut up!
Getting the TV thing, returning to Australia I became aware of all the propaganda in our media. You know it’s untrue because you’ve been there (were there) or have seen more. Just don’t try to enlighten the locals.
I’m wearing about 60 avocados!😉
Great post.
John says
I agree about how some friends and family don’t like you to talk about your travels or how travelling made you see things in a new light. I actually think that some people resent us for having the courage to travel and maybe are a bit jealous when they compare their lives to the traveller’s freedom.
I find this is true when you return home and ask people “So what’s new?” or what they have been doing while you were away, and they awkwardly reply “Nothing really”.
Nick says
#4
Guilty as charged
#8
I’ve almost had to stop listening to those songs because it whisks me off to this demotivating dreamland full of crowded buses, bumpy roads and amazing trekking to small villages.
#10
I have career goals. I stress about them, discuss them with friends…. but I’m not excited. I just keep seeming to tell myself wouldn’t it be better to wait until after I backpack another 30 countries?
#19
Romania….I’m supposed to be looking for a new job, but what are another 6 weeks off? I had a free flight!
Silvia says
Haha so it’s not just me!
Connie K says
Thanks for this great post. I counted out 10/19, totally relatable 👍
Silvia says
Haha glad you could relate!
Deb says
Still get miserable listening to songs from my time in Israel even though I came back 30 years ago!!! I would love to go back to visit (maybe without the rucksack!) has anybody done this? Does it ruin memories?
Silvia says
I’ve had both happen to me – I’ve returned some places decades later and loved all the memories, and returned a couple of places that just didn’t feel as amazing anymore.
Clazz - An Orcadian Abroad says
Pretty much all of these!!! But especially #8. And also #18 hahaha.
Chris says
#13 100%, for me it’s Mexican Pesos but going back to Canada and then to Europe was so hard after living in Mexico.
Chris says
Pronouncing all the Cyrillic background signs in Russian movies, even though you don’t know Russian…
Nynke says
I do that even without backpacking experience! Same with Japanese kana. If I’m fast enough reading them 🙂
Steve Dowden says
Probably you are stuck somewhere inside like the rest of us, but in a far more exotic place. I first saw your website back in 2015 and then somehow lost sight of it. Now I have rediscovered it and have enjoyed your trips in one large vicarious binge. What I am wondering now is this: do you take requests? While I am housebound I have been writing more and also wondering more about writing.. How does your writing relate to your experience?Does it hold it fast, like your photographs or does it somehow alter it? Like either deepen it or distort it or enrich it or flatten it? I mostly write about my reading (also experience but very different from travel). I think my writing deepens and somehow even creates my reading…
Melissa says
My usual awkward thing is forgetting what I have in my house or where I put things.
For example, my underwear I took backpacking is looking a bit shabby so I go out and buy a stash of new underwear. Then a week later I discover the huge stash of underwear I had bought while it was at a special end of season discounted price before I went on my travels. Same with other things like books, cooking spices, shampoo…
Lisi says
Hahaha love it! I “only” did a one year backpack trip but the first thing I noticed was hearing my mother tongue sounded so wrong. haha