What No One Tells You About Coming Home After Traveling

Coming home. The idea sounds so welcoming, so comforting, and so familiar. It’s the place where you grew up, where your roots are planted.

It’s the people you’ve known your entire life, the town or city you can navigate without thinking, the restaurants and cafes that carry memories of long conversations and quiet moments.

Coming home is coming back to your old routine, the comfort of familiarity, and perhaps most importantly, the version of yourself that once existed here.

For many, this return is a source of relief, something they crave after a week or two away, feeling homesick and missing the comforts of their daily lives.

But what happens when coming home after traveling feels underwhelming, stressful, or even upsetting? If you’ve never left for long stretches, or if you’ve never traveled to places vastly different from your hometown, you might be reading this and wondering how coming home could be anything but joyful.

How could returning to friends, family, and your own bed feel anything but comforting? Let me explain why coming home after extended travel, especially to unfamiliar places, can sometimes be a difficult reality to face.

The first time I truly experienced this was after I moved to Hawaii. I lived in Oahu for three years, and in that time, I grew in ways I couldn’t have imagined before.

I was constantly evolving—developing new hobbies, meeting people from all walks of life, and gaining fresh perspectives on the world. My lifestyle, my habits, my mindset—everything became shaped by the new environment I was in.

I had changed so much from the person I was back home, and I wasn’t just talking about the way I dressed or what I ate. It was more profound than that. My values, my way of thinking, and the very way I approached life had transformed.

This isn’t to say that I discarded everything from my past. The morals and mentalities that were instilled in me back home still shaped a lot of my character. But in Hawaii, I learned to embrace new perspectives, new ways of thinking, and new possibilities.

Over time, these changes became a part of who I was, and the more I stayed away from home, the more this “new me” took hold.

Then came the travel. I didn’t just take a vacation—I embarked on a journey of backpacking, visiting country after country, sometimes staying for weeks, sometimes for months. I lived out of a backpack, moving from place to place, exploring the world and immersing myself in entirely new cultures.

Some of these cultures were uncomfortable, others felt surprisingly familiar, but all of them left me with lasting lessons. I began to form connections with people I never would have met back home. People from different countries, religions, backgrounds, and walks of life.

I learned about their lives, their cultures, and their perspectives. All of this, while traveling alone, pushed me to become more independent, confident, and grounded. My mindset shifted. I became more open-minded, more informed about the world, and more certain of my passions and life path.

My time abroad fundamentally changed who I am, and it’s something I carry with me every day.

Now, you may be wondering, after all this time spent traveling and living this unconventional life, how could coming home possibly be anything less than exciting? The answer is layered and nuanced. Let me walk you through some of the reasons why coming home can be unexpectedly difficult.

Mentalities and Perspectives: A Disconnect

Where I’m from in the United States, there’s a pretty clear path that many people follow—graduate high school, go to college, get a job, buy a house, settle down. It’s the traditional route, and it’s something that’s deeply ingrained in the culture there.

My journey, though, has been very different. After years of traveling, living in places that challenge conventional thinking, and meeting people from vastly different backgrounds, I find that the mentality of my hometown can sometimes feel stifling. The questions I get asked—“

When will you settle down?” or “How are you supporting yourself while traveling?”—feel like reminders of how little people understand the lifestyle I’ve chosen. They often don’t know how to relate to what I’ve experienced, and that’s frustrating.

I also encounter assumptions about places I’ve visited or am planning to visit. “Oh, that must be dangerous,” they say. The quick judgments people make about countries they’ve never been to or cultures they know little about are jarring.

These knee-jerk reactions can feel dismissive and even hurtful, especially when I’ve just experienced so much beauty and growth in those places. The mentality back home often seems narrowly focused, and explaining my travels to others can feel like a constant uphill battle.

The Struggle to Explain

As much as people might ask, “How was your trip?” or “What’s it like being home?” these questions rarely go beyond the surface level. It’s challenging to express the depth of my experiences, the impact they’ve had on my life.

There are stories of the people I’ve met, the food I’ve tried, the uncomfortable moments, the things I’ve learned, and the realizations I’ve had—moments that have completely altered the way I see the world.

But most of the time, when I try to share these experiences, I find that they don’t resonate the way I hope they would. The people back home might smile and nod, but the conversation often doesn’t go deeper than superficial details about sightseeing or beach trips.

It’s a lonely feeling to return home to a place filled with familiar faces, yet realize that you’ve changed so much that your stories no longer fit into the conversations you once shared.

Growing Apart From Old Relationships

Another harsh reality of returning home is the way relationships evolve, or sometimes, dissolve. After spending so much time away, especially when traveling, you realize that the bonds you once shared with people back home have shifted.

It’s not that you no longer care about them, but you’ve both changed in ways that make it hard to connect on the same level you once did. Conversations that once felt meaningful now seem distant. You might feel like an outsider in your own hometown, even if you’ve spent your whole life there.

This can be one of the most difficult aspects of returning home—coming to terms with the fact that some relationships simply can’t grow with you as you evolve.

The Comfort vs. Discomfort Paradox

When you’re constantly on the move, there’s a certain thrill to the unpredictability of life. The excitement of exploring new places, meeting new people, and learning new things becomes a part of who you are.

But when you return home, you’re confronted with the comfort of stability—things like a big bathroom, a closet full of clothes, and a stocked kitchen. These luxuries are great for a few days, but after a while, they can feel suffocating.

The stability that once felt like a luxury now feels like a kind of confinement. The thought of staying still for too long starts to feel uncomfortable. It’s a strange mental state to be in—appreciating the comforts of home but also feeling a deep desire to move, to explore, to grow again.