What did you do when you got back?

I don't know if this is the right category for this question, but I'm interested in how your life changed or didn't when you got back from traveling.

My husband and I went RTW for 15 months. We stressed out a lot over whether there would be jobs when we got back, but my old boss re-hired me within 3 months of returning home. We sort of sank back into our old lives in the US, but it wasn't really the same. Hard to describe, but there are little things that I looked at differently.

About 9 months later my husband got a job offer in Europe, so we're off to our next adventure as expats. I don't think we would have ever done something like this if we hadn't done the traveling before. So in the end, we've had some pretty dramatic changes.

I'm wondering if anyone else went back to their former lives (and was it really the same?) or if most people find something new after traveling. Would love to hear your stories!

Haha, my story actually runs rather similar to yours.

I traveled a fair bit as a kid back and forth from Europe in summers (primarily visiting European relatives) but my first real time abroad was a semester abroad in NZ. Totally fell in love with it, first time I met/ really heard of rtw traveling, and it really got me out of my shell as I was a rather shy-and-geeky person in many regards. But wasn't done traveling so took some months off after undergrad to do my rtw, but by then there was a recession on so I couldn't go back to anywhere for graduate school except my prior university.

I should mention the prior university was in Cleveland, Ohio which is not exactly a mecca of international culture and all that- I had a lovely circle of friends but no one really looking much beyond their own little lives there, and more importantly there was no research I was interested in devoting 5-6 years of my life to for a PhD. So threw caution to the wind and applied to transfer primarily to Europe and ducked out early for another 4 months of travel ie until the money ran out while applying for PhD programs- reckoning if I like to travel so much expat life would be good cause then it'll be like traveling all the time. Got accepted in the 11th hour to University of Amsterdam to do some super neat astronomy stuff, so I'm a happy camper itching to move over next month!

I agree with you in that if I hadn't done my rtw I don't think I would be considering moving abroad for the next foreseeable chunk of my life, and I'm just tickled pink that it's worked out this way. I noticed during my second wander that I'm not interested in extended travel abroad right now so much as getting to know a place really well and doing shorter trips from it because, well, it's not like I mind having a home to keep going back to, I just really didn't like where it was!

But hey, I've also concluded that one of the best things in life is how none of it ever seems to work out the way you think it will. It'd be so boring if everything unfolded the way I thought it would.

I was gone for 8 months and I freaked out when I first got back. After a few months I got a job and got right back into most of the patterns I was before, except I was more aware. And saving like a packrat, planning for the next big one! It's now almost 2 years since I got back to work and it's nearly time to take off again...

nteresting. Andromeda, good luck with your move! Living abroad has given us a lot of opportunities to do long weekend trips and see a lot more of Europe. However, it's not quite like "traveling all the time" as you mention. I find that the everyday stuff like banking, groceries, car/hair/doctor appointments, etc. take up a lot more time than they did at home. Language is a big part of that challenge, but it gets easier every week. It's certainly an adventure, just a different kind than the RTW travel.

We have been talking about our next RTW too, but I think it will be a different trip now that we are getting to experience a lot of things in Europe.

Seat24A wrote:nteresting. Andromeda, good luck with your move! Living abroad has given us a lot of opportunities to do long weekend trips and see a lot more of Europe. However, it's not quite like "traveling all the time" as you mention. I find that the everyday stuff like banking, groceries, car/hair/doctor appointments, etc. take up a lot more time than they did at home. Language is a big part of that challenge, but it gets easier every week. It's certainly an adventure, just a different kind than the RTW travel.

We have been talking about our next RTW too, but I think it will be a different trip now that we are getting to experience a lot of things in Europe.

Oh yes, I certainly get that, but I'm thinking more on the lines of how one can just hop on a train and be in another country for a daytrip if you want. It's just not as good a quip to do the longer explanation of course.

Wandered around for 14-15 months. Came back due to some weird circumstances... and the fact that my old job opened up unexpectedly.

Been back 4.5 months. It's going HORRIBLY. I am NOT adjusting AT ALL. Making gentle but persistent efforts to be "normal" and failing on all counts. And I'm not used to failing.

I don't think it's possible to ever "return" fully. There will always be a little piece of me that's somewhere else, doing something else. I don't know how to integrate that into my daily life. We'll see what comes next...

We were gone for almost a year, and now we've been back in New York for about two months. Life is weird. It's as if nothing has changed...as if our trip never happened. My wife and I hate that feeling. We were so excited to see our friends, and once the initial happiness about seeing them and eating our favorite foods wore off, we both just feel kinda stuck here. After seeing a decent amount of the world, it's hard to stay in one place and be happy. We are very thankful to have each other and be able to talk about what we are going through.

She just started a job, while I am still looking. Seeing her go off to work further stresses how I don't want to settle into an office job yet again. Being able to do whatever you want on the road for a year certainly is amazing, so we are currently trying to figure out a business to found where we can work for ourselves anywhere we want.

RTW travel is absolutely liberating...until you get home and have to face the music of real life again.

hjo202 wrote:We were gone for almost a year, and now we've been back in New York for about two months. Life is weird. It's as if nothing has changed...as if our trip never happened. My wife and I hate that feeling. We were so excited to see our friends, and once the initial happiness about seeing them and eating our favorite foods wore off, we both just feel kinda stuck here. After seeing a decent amount of the world, it's hard to stay in one place and be happy. We are very thankful to have each other and be able to talk about what we are going through.

She just started a job, while I am still looking. Seeing her go off to work further stresses how I don't want to settle into an office job yet again. Being able to do whatever you want on the road for a year certainly is amazing, so we are currently trying to figure out a business to found where we can work for ourselves anywhere we want.

RTW travel is absolutely liberating...until you get home and have to face the music of real life again.

I can so totally, absolutely relate to EVERYTHING you're saying.
When you get it all figured out, let me know.
I could really use some advice/ guidance!

cascada wrote:

hjo202 wrote:We were gone for almost a year, and now we've been back in New York for about two months. Life is weird. It's as if nothing has changed...as if our trip never happened. My wife and I hate that feeling. We were so excited to see our friends, and once the initial happiness about seeing them and eating our favorite foods wore off, we both just feel kinda stuck here. After seeing a decent amount of the world, it's hard to stay in one place and be happy. We are very thankful to have each other and be able to talk about what we are going through.

She just started a job, while I am still looking. Seeing her go off to work further stresses how I don't want to settle into an office job yet again. Being able to do whatever you want on the road for a year certainly is amazing, so we are currently trying to figure out a business to found where we can work for ourselves anywhere we want.

RTW travel is absolutely liberating...until you get home and have to face the music of real life again.

I can so totally, absolutely relate to EVERYTHING you're saying.
When you get it all figured out, let me know.
I could really use some advice/ guidance!

when we are making our millions living wherever we want and picking up to travel whenever we want, we'll pass along our secrets. ha.our RTW trip was perhaps the greatest decision we made, but coming back home was a lot harder than expected.

sounds like you're continuing to travel though...

hjo202 wrote:

cascada wrote:

hjo202 wrote:We were gone for almost a year, and now we've been back in New York for about two months. Life is weird. It's as if nothing has changed...as if our trip never happened. My wife and I hate that feeling. We were so excited to see our friends, and once the initial happiness about seeing them and eating our favorite foods wore off, we both just feel kinda stuck here. After seeing a decent amount of the world, it's hard to stay in one place and be happy. We are very thankful to have each other and be able to talk about what we are going through.

She just started a job, while I am still looking. Seeing her go off to work further stresses how I don't want to settle into an office job yet again. Being able to do whatever you want on the road for a year certainly is amazing, so we are currently trying to figure out a business to found where we can work for ourselves anywhere we want.

RTW travel is absolutely liberating...until you get home and have to face the music of real life again.

I can so totally, absolutely relate to EVERYTHING you're saying.
When you get it all figured out, let me know.
I could really use some advice/ guidance!

when we are making our millions living wherever we want and picking up to travel whenever we want, we'll pass along our secrets. ha.our RTW trip was perhaps the greatest decision we made, but coming back home was a lot harder than expected.

sounds like you're continuing to travel though...

At the moment... no. I'm back in the town where I lived before I left. Trying to decide what the next step should be... I'm not sure if it's travel, but I do think I need more adventure and new experiences than what I have now.