BootsnAll Travel Community

What are your tricks for keeping yourself from missing friends & family too much when living far away from them for long periods of time? I'm very close to my mother, and though I'm excited about the prospect of living overseas, I also know that I'll be a basket case every now and again when I'll want to just hop in the car to visit her and know that I can't do that... There are technological gadgets like the Hug Shirt out there for sending affection over long distances, but something tells me that would be rather unsatisfying. (Either that or it would make me feel like I was being squished by a boa constrictor.)

So, assuming you do have people you miss back "home" and that you're not in the Witness Protection Program or have other reasons to have severed all ties with your past, what are your coping methods?

I call home every Sunday to stay in touch, and visit about every 18 months, while my folks come down to Mexico to see me about every 2 years. Mexico isn't all that from Canada though.

Being a bit of the 'black sheep' of the family, it's pretty normal for me to be in another city than the rest of the family.

I can think of a few ways to abuse that Hug Shirt... Not sure I'd want to be in class teaching here in Mexico and get a jolt in the middle of present perfect vs past simple routine.

Get a webcam and skype or similar messenger with voice and webcam capabilities. I bought my computer-retarded parents a webcam and set it up for them before we left. Now my kids videoconference with their grandparents every sunday. Its easy and free. You just need a high-speed connection.

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Originally posted by untypical gringo:
Get a webcam and skype or similar messenger with voice and webcam capabilities. I bought my computer-retarded parents a webcam and set it up for them before we left. Now my kids videoconference with their grandparents every sunday. Its easy and free. You just need a high-speed connection.

Ditto that. I have two ways to stay in touch, one is my visit every second year (my salary doesn't allow for more) and the other is the telephone. Skype is amazingly cheap, every 6 months or so we load up the account with euros but it's really no comparison. I call my mom in Los Angeles and only pay LA local rates. I call a good friend in Buenos Aires and only pay local Argentinian rates. It's brilliant because I can call people and just talk without ever worrying that it's too expensive. If I feel like talking for an hour I do. And that is really important.

I third the skype recommendations, especially the webcam idea. Video skype has been really great for staying connected to my young nieces.

Novel concept here, but 'travel'! On average, I make it back to America once a year. If you can afford it, this helps alot too. Maybe every two years or so I get a family visit out this way. Again, important.

Ditto what everyone says about Skype.

Thailand to USA about 0.017 Euros per minute. Hard to use up even the 10 Euros you use to open the account!

I use skype as well but recently spoke to someone who had a webcam...and it creeps me out. Scary! Maybe I'm just technologically inept (well, there's no maybe about that!). Up til a few weeks ago, I guess I assumed both people needed webcams for it to work. Nope.

It can also be nice to send packages once and a while. When I was in Sarajevo, once or twice a year my mom would send me stuff - and sometimes it was stuff like a mix for making mashed potatoes or Stove Top Stuffing, which is kinda funny. But it's nice to see that someone is thinking of you and to see what they pick out. I'm going to send a package home soon with small stuff I picked up in Turkey and "unique" Slovak products.

Phone, emails, little packages all help. Also once you settle into things, with such a distance between you, you start to forget that you miss them. At least for me, because you know that you can't just drive to them.

We haven't moved overseas yet, but just in living in the States we've always been at least 2,000 miles away. (The family is all in Indiana and we have lived in Oregon, Rhode Island, and now DC. Kyiv won't make much of a difference.)

We both call home regularly. We'll probably do Skype or Vonage, but I'm not sure which yet. Vonage lets you assign yourself whatever area code you want so we could make it a local call for our family.

We count on getting packages as well. Luckily, the State Department helps us out by providing us with a U.S. address even though we'll be in Ukraine. That means our family will only need to use regular postage to mail things to us.

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Luckily, the State Department helps us out by providing us with a U.S. address even though we'll be in Ukraine

I'm pretty sure this means you can also get netflix abroad... in case you were concerned

Pretty cool stuff.

I was talking to my mom the other day and she was saying that at first when the husband & I started talking about moving overseas she was sad... Thinking, "Oh, they'll be so far away, we won't be able to visit as often." Then she realized that even though we only live a little over an hour and half's drive apart, we only see each other a few times a year as it is!

Definitely not easy at times to be away. My wife and I are usually away from Seattle for 2 or 3 years at a time and then usually only go back for 3 months. But our mindset has really changed. We don't view Washington State as our "home" anymore. Tibet is home. The last time we were home (May 2005) we were missing our home and friends in Tibet so much. It helps that we have a lot of friends and family who like to travel. Most of our good friends and family try to visit us in Tibet every 2 years or so. We rarely go more than 3 or 4 months without having someone from back "home" come and visit us. Things like Skype make things a little easier. Even remote corners of Tibet can get internet (no cable though so it is quite slow). Packages also help. We get a package from someone about every 5 or 6 weeks.

Life in Tibet

I'd say the hardest part is when the loved ones back home seem to lose interest or are somehow prevented from getting in touch. In over nine years, I got a total of three phone calls from my father (one of which I missed) and none from my mother. I think in my dad's case it was just him being cheap and having grown up in an era when international phone calls cost an arm and a leg. I got in the habit of calling them on their respective birthdays and mother's/father's day. I do still resent the lack of calls to be completely honest.

I think the real awkward part comes when you return after a long absence -- "Hi Mom, sorry I missed your fifties..." Once we got over that, we had a great three weeks comparing travel notes as my mom has been to well over a hundred countries (just none that I happened to be living in at the time though we did find out that once we were a couple hundred yards apart at BKK awaiting connections). With my dad, it was him saying "I'm glad to see you got a haircut" or something like that.

If I do it over again, I will make a better effort to visit or push them harder to visit me. The guilt/anger cycle of doing otherwise just isn't worth it.

It's funny. I've found, at least with my mother, that the quality of our relationship seems to be inversely related to the distance between us. We talked more while I was living in China than we did when I was living half a mile away. I think it may be because when I'm far away we make it a point to talk, and when we're so close we just assume we'll be talking soon, but don't bother actually getting off the couch and making the phone call.

My dad and I have always been very close. Especially since I spent three years running the family business with him while I was getting my BA. I still talk to him four or five times a week...although a lot of those are basically quick business-related calls. It's hard to shake the need to check up on daily operations. He's made it very clear, though, that he will NEVER come visit me while I'm living abroad. He doesn't understand why anyone would want to leave our small town, let alone the country. I don't think he called me once while I was in China for three months even though I had a Skype number that was a local interchange for him. I find it difficult, because I hope to spend a good portion of my career overseas and it's hard for me to forgive him for not understanding why it's important for me to see the world.

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Originally posted by wanderlusting:
He's made it very clear, though, that he will NEVER come visit me while I'm living abroad. He doesn't understand why anyone would want to leave our small town, let alone the country. and it's hard for me to forgive him for not understanding why it's important for me to see the world.

Ditto on that one, dear Wanderlusting....and to everyone else, visiting the US and calling often, as well as e-mail is something that I do with all my friends and my family.

My immigrant parents never understood (neither do my immigrant grandparents) why I would return to our mother country...and I'm moving again, abroad, and my mother fears for me, and hates that I don't live near by.

But as for the anger/frustration, it seems to me that your parents react to your traveling because they feel abandoned, unloved, rejected that you would leave them for large amounts of time. Bonding and letting go is something that is learned, only through experiencing that...and your parent's are from a different generation that may or may not be open to such radical ideas.... so your job is to forgive them, and yourself for feeling guilt about being angry and for being angry.

To me, it's just so amazing, that a person can feel those attachments so strongly, no matter how close or how far one is from a loved one....and how easy it is to release that uncomfortable feeling of loss, missing, just by having gratitude for those feelings.

It just really makes you be present, when you are with them, because and when you are present, time just ceases to exist. And when I'm present, and I'm not with my family or friends, the homesickness feelings that sometimes arise in me, just dissipate because I'm just being where I am at that moment.

Oh yeah, and watching old re-runs of some junk american tv helps too....like American Idol, that was a current show that I watched only when abroad because I got to hear some American tunes and get a slice of american pop-culture to satisfy my strange cravings for it....

Anyway, good luck to everyone that sometimes feels homesick ...it's all good...

Sharmila

I'm so glad you brought this up, Jessie. It's good to know so many people use skype and webcams and email, but none of those, and no hug shirt, will really fill the empty space. We just have to deal with it--ache--miss each other. That's the consequence we have to pay for our adventures, and there's no escaping it. From reading the boards, I know your mom is also a traveler and a wild woman who goes on her own quests. I'm a mother and grandmother with wanderlust, so my kids have always had to deal with me disappearing; and one of my four kids grew up to be a sound engineer touring with rock bands, so now sometimes I don't hear from him for up to a year. I haven't seen him in person since Christmas of 2002, but I feel deeply connected with him. What works in my family is that we all know, deeply, that we love each other; we all want each other to be happy; and we make the most we can of the rare moments when we can actually be together. I still get insecure and sad sometimes. I wake from a bad dream and wonder if they're all OK. I miss them, and it hurts, and I just have to let it hurt. I love that line from Lawrence of Arabia (the movie): "The trick is not minding that it hurts."

Well, now that I'm actually abroad, I have to stand by my earlier statement. As far as being apart from family, it isn't much different being in Ukraine versus being in Portland or DC when my family is in Indiana. Thanks to technology it all feels the same. I probably call home even more now than when I lived in the States so it works out well. The main issue I run into is that folks aren't computer savvy or online so I can't just send little emails or digital photos their way. We have learned, however, that we can upload photos to CVS.com and have them developed in any CVS store in the world so my parents can pick them up right in town. That's handy.

Friends are a different issue though. To be honest since we have moved around a lot we have made great friends in several different places, but very few actually take the time to stay in touch. I email, but I rarely get anything back. C'est la vie, I guess.

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Originally posted by skobb:
Well, now that I'm actually abroad, I have to stand by my earlier statement. As far as being apart from family, it isn't much different being in Ukraine versus being in Portland or DC when my family is in Indiana. Thanks to technology it all feels the same.

Ditto. I've been back in the U.S. visiting for the last couple of months. During that time, I haven't spoken with those loved ones that live in other cities any more or less frequently than I do when overseas.

Skobb, did you end up going with Vonage or some other form of VoIP?

I still haven't managed to get internet hooked up at home although in theory a technician is coming by today. One came by last week and decided he had the wrong part and needed to come back a week later. Ahh...Ukraine.

However, once we're set up I think we're going to try Skype first. I've heard lots of rumors about the potential demise of Vonage because of their lawsuit with Verizon.

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Originally posted by skobb:

However, once we're set up I think we're going to try Skype first. I've heard lots of rumors about the potential demise of Vonage because of their lawsuit with Verizon.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Vonage/Verizon dispute. Worst case scenario, the problem won't be passed down to consumers for another couple of years (regardless of the final outcome.)

That said, if you don't need an "always on" phone solution, then Skype is probably the best option regardless. I went with Vonage due to the high call volume (business phone), and because I didn't want to leave the PC running all day.