You’ve had an incredible two weeks in Thailand, a month in Australia, and half a year backpacking across Europe. Along this road of glorious travel you’ve experienced magical moments and made fast friends. But now it’s time to go home, and you’re nowhere near enthusiastic about it. Going home is important, though, for reflection and connection with those who understand you.
The Travel Bug
I think it’s safe to say that you are someone who likes to travel. To see and experience the wide-open world, the vast unexplored excitement of new cultures, sensations and people. This, we could agree, is life—perhaps, the only way to live.
You have heard of the travel bug, a whimsical little creature that catches you by surprise, tickling with an itch to be somewhere unknown. Go, I say. Embrace this feeling with everything in you. Scratch this itch, follow this bug, do, and see and be.
But when this feeling, like all feelings, starts to leave: let it go.
Home: It's Not Where You're From, But Where People Understand You
Those exhilarating experiences abroad are immeasurable. Back home is not new, or novel or nearly as exciting. Yet home is not where you are from. Home is where people understand you, so go home to the people you’ve invested in, to the ones who understand you, to the lives you’ve poured into your most sacred resource of time.
A Time For Reflection
Sometimes it is the distance between those travels and home that allows the gravity of your experiences abroad to sink in. Reflect on the connections you made, how and why your perspectives may have shifted and the challenges you faced and overcame.
And when that travel bug returns, which it usually does, you can always set sail again!
Taylor Taylor is a participant on InterExchange's Work & Travel Australia program.
Work & Travel Australia
Work, travel and make friends during the adventure of a lifetime in Australia!
