3 Traveler Techniques For Adjusting After Being Abroad

In many ways, coming home after living overseas is even harder than leaving. For one, you’ve changed in hundreds of perceptible and imperceptible ways. For another, so has everyone else – despite the fact you did not give them permission to continue with their lives after you left (Rude!). Suddenly all the familiar stuff you took for granted seems strange and alien, and you find yourself itching to purchase the plane ticket for your next adventure. But before you repack that suitcase, here are three techniques to ease the transition:

1) Take the backseat to everyone else.

The last six months or two years or whatever have been monumental; it’s only natural to expect everyone to listen to your updates with rapturous attention. But chances are some pretty big stuff has been going down while you’ve been M.I.A. as well – engagements, funerals, graduations, babies – so playing audience first and foremost is a great way to show you’re not just a narcissistic asshole.

2) Prepare two stories, maximum.

When your turn does come, restrict yourself to one or two of your greatest memories (and nothing longer than five to ten minutes). Remember, there is a reason why you’re the one who went abroad and they didn’t: this stuff just means more to you. It’s like if your buddy suddenly really got into ant farming, or that guy you never saw again after he downloaded Minecraft. Your friends love you, so they’ll put up with the retelling of the time you drunkenly fell off the tuk-tuk, but not because they think it’s as funny as you do.

3) Stay one year, minimum.

This one has always proven hardest for me to keep, ramblin’ man/rolling stone/jet plane leaver that I am. About three months after settling back into your old life, you will become profoundly bored and begin nonchalantly browsing Expedia for deals to Buenos Aires. But book nothing, if only for the sake of your piecemeal resume. Traveling is like a drug, and users everywhere are always looking for the next hostel high. By staying put for a year or more, you’re giving yourself a chance to set down some roots and remember why you called this home in the first place. That doesn’t mean you won’t be off adventuring in the near future – you’re just making sure you have a world to come back to afterwards.