I have just returned from traveling solo around the world for almost a year, but in the past two weeks since I have been back I have never felt more alone.

I find myself hesitant to call where I am home. To me now, home is the world. It is a hammock in a $12 a night hostel. It is on a train headed to a location I can’t pronounce. It is sitting eating breakfast with people speaking a language I don’t know and trying to follow the conversation. Where I am now is the place that I grew up, where my family and friends live, but it’s not home to me. Not anymore.

This is a struggle that I thought I had prepared myself for. But what I’m feeling is nothing like I expected.

Seeing my friends and family again has been wonderful. I have had a couple of great days, enjoyed Christmas and nights out with friends since I have been back that have been fun. But the lack of happiness I feel is what has caught me unawares.

On the road everyday I was on a happiness high and I knew it. Everyday single day I was incredibly grateful for everything put in front if me, and embraced all opportunities fully with a smile on my face. Even on my slow days just hanging out in hostels, relaxing, watching laptop movies, using wifi, my happiness was at an extreme level. Being surrounded everyday by travelers speaking a multitude of languages, easily striking up conversations with interesting strangers that quickly turn to dinner, drinks and adventures has been my norm for almost a year.

Now the lack extreme happiness is killing me. I didn’t realise how truly addicted I am. How amazing my life on the road really truly was. What a different life I have been living.

I have cried more in the past couple of days than I did the entire time I was traveling. Tears come from no where, I find myself sobbing at a traffic light. I can’t even really describe how I feel. It’s like the absence of a happiness high is causing a massive hole within me that I just can’t fill.

I have also found that relating to everyone here who has been living their regular lives in a ‘normal’ way is not as it was. People don’t really care about my travels. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is very happy to have me back safely and are thrilled that I have experienced everything I have, but when I contribute to conversations with, “When I was in Nice….” or “In Mexico the other week…” I see their faces fall slightly or their eyes start to glaze over. Most of the time it’s an unconscious thing that they don’t realise has happened, but it subtly reminds us that our lives don’t relate as they used to. I end up sitting quietly myself just listening as the conversation flows around me, feeling completely separate from the social situation I’m in.

Everyone here has moved on with their lives as they should. Babies have been born, houses have been bought and sold, jobs have changed. However the majority of things, the city, the basic structure and habits of people’s lives are the same as when I left. I’m the one who’s different. I have read this is called reverse culture shock. Coming back into a society with a very materialistic way of living is just not something relate to anymore.

I never wanted to return home. If had enough money to continue I wouldn’t be here. Feeling homesick is never something that I have felt in all my life – I think maybe that part of me is broken 🙂 If I can live my life permanently as a traveler, that’s what I will do. This mind set may change in the future, I don’t know. But at the moment I need to be on the road.

So I’m not staying. On my first day back in the country having stepped off the plane 10 hours before, I was arranging for my house to be re-leased for another 12 months, and telling my friends and family that I’m going again. I am planning on teaching English somewhere in the world, hopefully Thailand. I will be here in Adelaide, Australia for the next 3 – 4 months working in a contract position that I am extremely blessed to have be offered to earn some money, organise my life and go.

I am hoping this post-travel depression will ease soon. Knowing I am working towards something, that I will be boarding a plane in the near future will hopefully ease this struggle. I have drawn comfort from reading other traveler’s blogs who are going through exactly the same thing. I am relieved to learn I am not alone on this emotional roller coaster, and I’m sure any other long term (or even short term) travelers out there will read this and say, “Yes, that is exactly what is happening to me.”