Your trip recovery plan for when you come home from traveling

We might not all get to go away every month out of the year, but hopefully you’ve set aside some time to travel this year. It’s a much needed reset – time to unwind, step away from the computers, put down the cell phones and be in the present. While leaving can be amazing, coming back and re-adjusting to the everyday can be a challenge. This can be especially difficult if you were so anxious to go on your adventure that you forgot to do some important things before you left.

Too often, I used travel as an escape from a life I didn’t even like in the first place. When travelling, I felt less confined by time, money or location. I could do whatever I wanted, I could spend some extra cash I had saved up, and go wherever I wanted to go. Yet after coming home my stress levels quickly spiked back to where they were before I had left. Instead of tacky souvenirs, I wanted to take that experience of freedom home with me. I became passionate about implementing my traveling lifestyle right at home, reconnect with my passions and live a meaningful life.

I wrote an entire book about taking the sense of freedom travel brings home with you. So let’s let’s talk about the readjusting to the everyday, the place where we live, breath and (hopefully) thrive. Here are some tips to make our adjustment to everyday life just as pleasant as vacation (or at least a little less stressful).

Start with organizing your finances and expenses, it’s not always fun to see just how much money was spent but it is necessary. Keep all of your receipts, make notes on them and map out those expenses. If you are concerned about losing these receipts or if they start to fade taking a photo for backup is always a great option for a back-up.

Help your fellow travelers. While it is fresh in your mind make sure you let the whole world know how your trip went. Was your free breakfast at the hotel you stayed at just to die for? Great! Write them a review. It’s not necessary to include every detail down to the last bite but let others know in a short and sweet review that they exceeded your expectations. Include photos if you have them. On the same token, if a business let you down on the trip be honest about it in the review. It’s warning for future customers but also providing feedback to that company.

You might have uncovered some inspiration on your trip and maybe you even wrote down a note or two. The idea for my first book (which eventually became a #1 best seller) was born on an extended trip through Asia. If you want to go beyond sharing some of your experiences in reviews and maybe want to get started on that dream of writing your own book, check out my course Write a Book in a Week. I’ll help you personally to get your notes organized and in the right structure to turn it into a real printed book.

After sharing your thoughts, share what you saw with all of your friends and family. Don’t wait two years to clean off your camera. Back up your photos offline using SD cards and flash drives, back up your photos online using Google Photos or Dropbox. Before posting them all onto your favorite social media site (or even better: on your own Smugmug photo site), make sure to clean them up. Do you really need those 15 photos of that seagull flying by in a blur? What’s that, another 10 of the inside of your bag? Delete those, it’ll give you clarity when you go through to post, print and share your photos.

Now that all of that is done, kick off your shoes and take a deep breath – the real world starts tomorrow. Welcome home!