Back-Home Blues
Travel is great until you get home.
Twenty years ago, on my first big road adventure across America on Route 66, I noticed something when I got back:
As soon as I took the highway exit to get back into my hometown, I was disappointed. “Back to reality,” I thought. It’s dramatic to say out loud, but getting back home left me with the feeling that the trip was all make-believe. It was like I never left.
That feeling, that disappointment, has never gone away. In fact, just this summer, when we returned from the Atlantic coast, it felt the exact same way taking that exact same exit off the highway.
I’m not saying we didn’t have a wonderful time, nor am I saying it would’ve been better if we never left. I am saying that coming back home to all the to-do lists, work, and obligations can be a bummer.
It feels so good to travel, to see new places and experience new things. And then you drive away, leaving it all behind with photos and memories to keep you going until the next big adventure. Luckily, we have our fair share of future travel plans.
Real life feels like the in-between moments before the next getaway.
That’s why I advocate for taking little adventures along the way – taking a day and going hiking, say, or driving to a new small town and making pictures there.
Whatever helps until the next escapade.
Shot on the Canon EOS M6 and EF-M 22mm f/2 in Brooklin, Maine.