Notes from the road: Saying goodbye to travel

Brendan van Son is a travel writer and photographer from Alberta, Canada.  For more from him check out his website Brendan's Adventures and "Like" him on Facebook.

We so often talk about the things we learn and experience on the road. We gain so much out of the travel experience that it's often impossible to explain the gravity of the lessons learned on the road to people when we come home.

The truth is, returning home after a long trip is one of the most frustrating things any traveller can experience. Quite often when we return, we find our home the same as we left it, our friends and families unchanged, and home a place of stagnation where we can't grow.

The majority of time we, too, regress to our pre-travel state. However, there are many lessons we learn during travel that we can bring home.

The Adventure

Travelling forces even the least adventurous people to step outside their usual comfort zone and try things that they are not used to undertaking.

This might mean taking part in something extreme, like bungee jumping, or even something simple like trying a new type of food. However, there is no need to restrict your adventurous nature to your travels.

Travelling teaches us that when we step out of our comfort zone we usually really enjoy it, and if nothing else we are proud of ourselves for stepping up to a challenge.

When you get home, go and try things you haven't done. Visit local tourist destinations you haven't visited and have a little bit of an adventure in your own backyard.

The Growth

We grow so much through travel because it forces us to. As we stand at a kiosk in Argentina trying to order a bottle of wine, and we know that we need to learn how to make that order in Spanish. We strive to learn things about the culture, history, and geography of the places we visit and learn a great deal along the way. While at home we might make the excuse that we are too busy to learn and to grow our knowledge bases, but the truth is with a little effort it is more than possible.

In fact, there is a lot of culture, history and geography we can learn about our homelands as well. Personal growth is something that we should work on every single day for the rest of our lives.

Meeting people

Travel is a great way to meet a host of new, like-minded people. It seems that in our travel experiences we make great friends almost instantly, and without effort.

But what is really holding us back from meeting these people in our home country? Why do we have to go thousands of kilometres and travel across the world to meet new, interesting people?

When you get home from your travels think back to how open and welcoming you were to people and then do the same.

Travel is a wonderful thing. It so often brings out the best in ourselves; possibly because our guard is down and maybe because we have less stress while on vacation. However, all the lessons you learn while travelling are essentially for nothing if you can't bring them home with you. Try to let travel be your guide for a better, more adventurous life at home.

Have you ever struggled to adapt after coming home from travel? What are some of the ways you have learnt to cope? Leave a comment for Brendan below. Or chat to the Gecko's community on Twitter and Facebook.

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