It’s a funny thing is travelling. You go to see things, explore new countries, experience new cultures and meet new people. You leave behind friends and family for a period of time and are excited about what’s to come. You set off on an adventure and you experience freedom, like proper freedom. You get up and go where the wind takes you (or the tuk tuk or the random guy on the motorbike who’s offered you a lift). You learn to live a little, take risks and do things on a whim. You step outside of your comfort zone. You trust strangers in your dorm room with your most prized possessions, you meet random people with blocked bank cards and transfer them money, trusting that they will send it back to you. You do things you wouldn’t normally do. You eat things that look like they shouldn’t ever be on a plate let alone scrutinized by a palate. And you play cards…a lot of cards. You spend hours talking to people you’d usually just walk past and you tell them things you’ve never even told your best friend. You see sights you only thought existed on postcards and venture places with names you can never pronounce and will never remember.

You add copious amounts of people on Facebook and post fabulously edited photos on Instagram. You open up to the world and see things through different eyes, eyes that are now truly open. You venture into areas that you thought were created just for the movies, and you look into the eyes of people who unequivocally know the definition of pain. Your heart feels things with more intensity because what you encounter has no frills, no filter and is raw, honest and true. You see people at their best and their worst. You witness relationships flourish and relationships come crashing down. You learn how little you need to survive, how many of your possessions are unnecessary and irrelevant when you’re living out of a backpack. In fact, you can’t wait to throw your once worldly goods out so you can travel a bit lighter. You learn to say yes to everything and learn to do nothing. Sitting on transport for days at a time requires being at one with yourself, being content doing nothing and you learn to do this. You learn to be firm and stand your ground – “no I don’t want that £1.50 haircut”, “no I wont pay $25 for a mango”, “no I will not marry you”. You learn to try new things. You learn to sleep everywhere and anywhere, there’s no vehicle too bumpy, no mattress too hard and no pillow with too many golf ball sized lumps. You learn to accept, sometimes things just are and there’s no point in questioning or fighting this. You learn to embrace other cultures – taking your shoes off in the shop and eating with your hands (this is particularly hard with soup). You learn all of these things and more.

And then you get tired. Tired of hostels, tired of fungal toenails, tired of being scammed. Tired of eating noodles, tired of that backpack that never sits quite right and rubs your shoulders. Tired of sitting on transport for three days at a time, tired of planes, buses and trains. You get tired of people in poorer countries thinking you’re rich, tired of people pulling your already ripped clothes and begging for money. Tired of being stared at. You get tired of wearing the same stained clothes every day, tired of having a dodgy tummy and running out of loo roll at unfortunate moments and tired of being hot, really hot. Or tired of being cold, really cold. You get tired of meeting new people, asking the same old questions; “so what’s your name and where are you from?” “where else have you been?” You get tired of sharing rooms with snorers and people who talk in their sleep. You get tired of sanitising your hands and taking your shoes off in the shop. You get tired off missing out on events of home, tired of missing that wedding or landmark birthday party. You get tired of watching nieces and nephews grow up, seeing you so little they forget your name, tired of not patting your dog. You get tired of the lack of routine and the steady income, the security of the comfort of home. Tired of always having to be alert and aware of everything around you. Tired of lumpy pillows, and holey crotches (maybe that’s just the pants from India), tired of always moving.

And then all of a sudden you stop.

And some people go home and settle back into their previous, pre travel lives, armed with awesome memories that no one can ever take away. But what happens next? That’s the killer question. You go back into “normal” life, you adapt, you forget the way you felt when you saw the dead bodies in India, how your heart melted when you witnessed the children of the slums getting excited over a pencil. You forget the sense of freedom that overwhelmed you that time you climbed a volcano for sunrise. You have the distant memories, but you forget how these things felt…how they really felt in that moment of complete unrestraint when you were aware of nothing but yourself and surroundings. When you witnessed that thing that you will never see again, that once in a lifetime opportunity you took. And that’s life. You remove yourself from any situation and you automatically unattach yourself from it. You have to, because that’s how we move on, how we survive. You forget how it is possible to have a wardrobe consisting of two t shirts and one pair of pants and how it’s perfectly simple to live like this. You forget how not having a washing machine is absolutely fine. And you forget the lessons that travel actually taught you, the things you learnt, like really learnt. Or maybe you never really knew what you learnt. I’m not sure I could tell you what I know now that I didn’t know before, but I’m also certain that there are so many things, I just can’t name them, they’ve just crept their way into my subconscious.

Some people are ready to go home and settle back into their lives, go back to old jobs or find new ones. They take things away from their adventures, loved them and feel ready to step back into ‘normality’. And then there are others, other people who go back and never really fit in. They can’t quite get back into their world the way it once was. The same things, the same places don’t seem to have the same thrill that they used to. Everything is the same. Except that everything has changed, at least for them. They no longer see the world in the same way, they no longer thrive off the known, they no longer feel security from the 9-5 and they feel flat. There’s something missing but they can’t work out what. And nothing prepares you for that. At first you’re the new shiny object and everybody is excited to see you, you make plans, meet up with friends and family and have a good old reunion. But pretty quickly you’re left on your own, back in a world you don’t know how to belong, fitting yourself back in around everyone else’s lifestyle. A lifestyle that is no longer your own.

I envy the people we met travelling who had a plan. Those that went home and knew what was going to happen next, that had something to look forward to. Those that were starting new careers, or going to uni, or getting married. For them going home is more than people, it’s where they belong. It’s the ‘other’ travellers that have it tough. Because what do you do when you go back to a place and you no longer fit in? When you no longer thrive off the lifestyle you once had? Nothing prepares you for coming back off your travels, nothing prepares you for the unpredictable shift inside. And for some people it’s that shift that’s the struggle.

From the outside travelling is all fun and games, but for the few that return and feel different it changes everything in a way they can’t explain and leaves them feeling a big hole full of empty. We know, we’ve met so many people who have gone home after months, years of exploring and felt lost. And low. But you don’t hear about this, about the truth of the post travel lag.

For some people it opens up a whole new world of opportunities which in turn opens up a whole tin of worms. It raises questions they can’t necessarily answer, questions that had never been apparent before. It creates uncertainty about the future and the things they need in their life going forwards. It causes chaos with their mindset and creates doubt about what makes them happy, what beliefs they truly hold. Coming home is hard.

The truth about travelling? It’s good, bad and it’s ugly. It’s fun, frantic and eye opening. It teaches you and makes you look at everything differently, question everything.

And most of all…it doesn’t prepare you for coming home.