Tips för att bota din hemlängtan när du reser

Today we present a guest post

The first few days of travelling are usually filled with ecstasy. You never want to go home again, you just want to stay in the moment. Eventually, this feeling disappears for most people and is replaced by an agonising feeling: homesickness.

Homesickness is the feeling in your chest when you want to watch the beautiful sunset with your best friend, hug your mum after a long day, or just be at home in your bed rather than out in the tropical heat or freezing cold.

Longing for home is normal, but it's not a feeling that should be allowed to take over your experience. That's why we're sharing some of our best tips for curing homesickness when travelling away from Sweden.

Table of contents

Write down things you are grateful for in the moment

Our brain is a very exciting mechanism. It is quite easy to reprogramme it. So when you are travelling, it is a good idea to write down a few things you are grateful for every day. That is, things you are grateful for in the present. Like being in sunny Thailand instead of at home in the winter cold in Sweden. Or that tonight you're going out for dinner with some new friends instead of staying at home and watching series alone.

By continuously writing down things you are grateful for, you can reprogramme your brain and eventually (hopefully) cure your homesickness.

Enjoying things that remind you of Sweden

It may seem like a bad way to deal with homesickness, but the fact is that you can cure your homesickness by enjoying things that remind you of your home country. Many times you miss the Swedish food, the Swedish forests, the Swedish entertainment and the warm days when you are in a country far away. You can easily cure this.

For example, you can go to an IKEA if it is in your country to eat Swedish meatballs. Alternatively, you could watch Swedish TV to remind yourself how much you like Swedish humour. With a VPN, you can watch channels such as SVT Play wherever you are in the world. Then you connect to an IP address at home in Sweden and can then watch as much Swedish TV as you want without being limited by the region you are in!

Discovering new places and getting to know new people

A pretty obvious way to cure homesickness is to take your mind off it! And what better way to do this than to discover new places and sights and do it with new people? Plus, these new friends are probably experiencing the same thing as you - they're homesick.

It does not matter if you travelling around AsiaGo on a road trip in Sweden or find yourself in the wilderness somewhere. Most people experience homesickness when they are away from their loved ones for a long period of time. So you can talk to them about your feelings and together you can try to work through them for the better. By talking to new people about your feelings, you are not repressing them, but learning to live with them and become better at dealing with them!

Contact your loved ones

Just because you're on holiday doesn't mean you should avoid your friends and family back home. Talking to your mum every day isn't good for your homesickness, but shutting her out completely won't make it any better.

Try to schedule one phone call a week with your parents, siblings and closest friends and send postcards to your acquaintances. Sometimes a call to your loved ones is actually enough to cure your homesickness. But there is a limit to what is more likely to result in more homesickness versus what actually diminishes it. Eventually you will find a balance for your life and it is important to listen to it.

As mentioned above, homesickness is a natural phenomenon that most people experience. However, if the feeling of homesickness turns into continuous anxiety, it is important to be able to process the anxietyand if you can't handle it yourself, you should of course seek help.