How long does that feeling “I’m glad to be home” last?

Periscope, are you glad to be home after your trips and if you are, for how long?

If I am traveling by myself, I also move around a lot during 3-week trips - two nights per location is average with three at larger cities and some one nights for a specific site. Two hours on a train between locations is the average. All of that to say, I am ready to sleep in my own bed by the end of the trip, and my husband & I are very glad to be together again.

After a few days home, I start missing the favorite locations I just visited, meals being made for me (yes!). Just an example - I heard a violinist playing “The Prayer” in Cremona, Italy, and I immediately purchased the gorgeous advanced piano arrangement of it when I returned. Playing it puts me right back into that wonderful piazza setting! That “missing Europe” feeling lasts a couple of weeks until I get back into our normal routine. Then I am very happy to be home.

So my time graph of “Happy to be Home” would have a spike when I first arrive home, drop back down for a few weeks, and another rise and stay steady throughout Fall. (We travel domestically sometime during the Winter months.)

If my husband was traveling with me, his internal travel clock was ready to be back home before mine signals the same. So, there was a bit of a letdown for me to be back home when we returned while he was happy to be back. Those were trips before we were retired, so maybe heading back to work was part of it, too! ; )

During those years, we traveled in September, and I was mentally beginning to plan our next trip by November.

(Since that time, we learned that if my husband is traveling with me, I add a few weeks before he flies over to Europe. It works perfect for both of us because I’m ready for a slower pace - staying more nights per location, and that’s his preference, too.)

But what about the dogs? After about ten days, my husband won't stop talking about missing the dogs, so two weeks is our optimum, and in a good year, two international trips satisfy the craving. However, we live in Southern California, and are increasing aware of fall fire season, and have become hesitant to travel then.

As far as I can remember, most likely never,, ie, , never lasts at all, whether it was my first trip lasting 12 weeks (84 days) and going solo because I knew I had to come back to register for the next school year, or my first post-retirement trip lasting 67 days. The main reason then was the grandson's birthday. Before that regarding all trips' return, it was because I had to come back, no choice, either due to Schengen or the job.

We can only afford to travel once per year, so it's a bit of a downer for awhile until I can start planning the next trip. We usually travel 8-10 days as we're on a budget, and I do miss our bed (nor for that) and the creature comforts of home.

We do other shorter trips like long weekends during the year, but not to Europe.

Pat, we've always had a cat or two and a dog, but now just three rescued cats, so yeah we do miss them after awhile. Three cats is one too many but what are we gonna do? We vacuum every day.

I think I fall in along Periscopes lines. We've been retired for so long now that I have a hard time remembering trips I thought were too short. My sweet spot is roughly 4-5 weeks per trip. We do 2 per year on average, and I'm satisfied with that, knowing we'll be travelling somewhere else in a few months.. But I rarely travel for more than a long weekend between late spring and early fall. Those months are devoted to my gardens, one of my other great pleasures in life.

I usually wish I could extend my trip even longer.

Our trips are getting longer yet I'm seldom ready to return home. There's always something we didn't get to see or do and I wonder if it's really likely we will return to that location. Normally I start imagining the next travel within 2 months at home. That changed when we had such an unpleasant, disastrous return from London. I knew I was in for it when I couldn't print my boarding pass at the hotel. It became even worse when we learned that our flight had been completely canceled at the moment we arrived at LHR. Fortunately we were able to get 2 of the few empty seats on the next flight about 6 hours later. We lost our premium economy in the 2 seat section and had no under seat storage in the bulkhead seats and constant bumping into my shoulder where the aisle narrowed. Of course we were just lucky to get home with just a 6 hour delay. I'm sure several hundred people had more difficulty. The worst thing was my nightmarish "SSSS" experience I still faced. Once at home I vowed never to go through that experience again but as you might guess I was dreaming of traveling again just as the pandemic struck. So I was glad to be home 4 months instead of 2.

Tammy, the safari might have been more disorienting and tiring (as well as fantastic) than the same amount of time in European cities, making you readier to return home. Just my guess. My trips tend to be 2-3 weeks, hopefully twice a year if we ever "get back to normal." I enjoy them but seldom regret coming home as scheduled, partly because I miss my wife, house, bed, etc., and partly because I'm just tired (more as I age).

My "recovery" time at home is about a week, what with jet lag, catching up with local happenings, sorting through pictures, and rediscovering that my friends' "how was your trip?" doesn't mean they want a day-by-day account or a long slide show. It probably takes about a month before I'm ready to start planning the next big trip. Planning is definitely a big part of the total fun of travel.

for various reasons, particularly a few i am not supposed to discuss on this forum, i don't get the 'glad to be back home' feeling. i don't have family, human or otherwise, so those obligations are not applicable to me. on the other hand, i am not currently retired and it is my job that pays for the party. all in all, my feelings are neutral and will start thinking about next summer after january.

I feel like I shouldn’t answer this question…. 🤣🤣

I’m enjoying reading the comments.

TexasTravelmom, your right, probably best to stay quiet on this one. And Pat, we did miss our 2 dogs and teenager too for that matter.
I told my husband that starting this year, I want 2 International trips a year (spring and fall). He is 62 now, worked hard all his life and close to retirement. This was the first year ever that he exceeded his 4 weeks of paid vacation.

I love being at home and staying home during Covid kind of helped me connect to our fairly new to us location and home. Once we get home from a trip I don’t want to travel for several weeks. However it seems that almost every day we do some planning towards our next trip. If we have 2-3 planning folders on the coffee table we are always looking forward to somewhere. At times during Covid we were able to do some domestic trips which were fun too. Our developing pattern seems to be 1-2 European trips per year and one winter warm getaway trip. Throw in out of state visits to family, under explored US and Canadian destinations and we always have something to reset the travel calendar..

I never get that "oh my gosh, I need a vacation " feeling, but at the same time I'm always looking forward to the next one, likely because we enjoy the planning so much. It's more like a process; we're ready to come home after about 2 weeks but we're already excitedly planning the next one.

The welcome- back glow starts to fade as I open the accumulation of bills due.

Until that first morning - when there's nobody waiting to make my cappuccino, and no buffet.

I also miss the breakfast buffets when I'm home.....

I never have that “ready to come home” feeling. I miss the dogs but my kind tends to go towards wondering if I could fly them to me 🤣. Much to my husband’s chagrin, I start planning my next trip on the flight home.

Oh yes, the dogs are a big factor for us!

Last summer we did 12 days in Iceland and then were only home for 8 days before we headed to Alaska. In planning I figured that would be plenty of time at home, but I was mistaken. We were in the Alaskan bush for 2 weeks and by the time we got home we were thoroughly exhausted. I know part of it was the dogs as one had cancer, but we knew they were in good hands here at our home.

Normally I feel like I am ready to go again after about a week, but after that trip last year I know to give myself more time now.

It will be interesting this fall as we are headed to Iceland again and then are only only home for about 30 days and head back to Germany/Austria.

My trips are usually about 12 days, and I am not ready to go home at that time. Usually when I get picked up from the airport at home, I’m happy to be there to tell everyone about my trip, and then I’m briefly glad when I arrive home and get to go to bed in my own bed. But by the next morning, I am not glad to be home, and I’m ready to plan my next trip. On one 10 day trip I took 8 flights in those ten days, including three flights to get home. After that trip I was glad to not fly again for a long time, but that’s the closest I’ve come to long term glad to be home.

My European trips are usually around 3-1/2 weeks. That's about as long as I really want to be away, or to eat regularly at restaurants, or to sleep in hotels. Since flights are only 3-5 hours and a 1-hour time difference, I can take 2 or 3 trips a year. If the trip means long-haul flights to the US or Asia, I always plan on at least 4 weeks, usually 5+ "to make the long flights worthwhile." I seem to have a switch in my head so 2-3 days before the end of a trip I start to think about being at home, seeing friends, getting back to usual and the day before the flight, my head is back at home. Though coming home was much better when I had a cat.

I don't have to "feel up for another trip." I'm unhappy unless I have at least one more trip planned before I leave on one. Right now I've got plane tickets for the US in October and Europe in December. I hope to start working on another European trip for April-May before I leave for the US.

Doesn't matter how long of a trip I take, usually about 2/3 through the trip I'm longing for home, and by the time I leave I'm ready to be home. I'll be missing work, friends and family.

But at the sametime I'm longing for home, I'm already laying the groundwork for my next trip abroad.

As far as pets. No dogs here. I do have a corn snake named Maizey. She only needs to be fed once every two weeks -- so little fuss there.

I am a bit late to reply to this post because we're in the midst of 2 months of travel. After we retired 9 years ago we found our trips kept getting extended. We started with two weeks of travel and found that was too short so we extended another week and with each trip we kept extending the time until we hit the sweet spot for us of about 2 months. We started our current trip on a safari to Kenya & Tanzania (had been to both in the past) that we extended slightly with some independent travel for a total of 3.5 weeks. After we traveled to Paris where we are currently in an airbnb. Since we've spent time in Paris in the past and have already done most of the iconic things we can leisurely explore, wander (and eat) and linger.
After we return we will bask in the after glow for about two months (includes photo review and developing a slide show of our travels) and then we're ready to go again. We have been taking one international extended (as before mentioned) trip of about 2 months per year, however, after 2.5 covid years and cancelled trips being moved forward we're now taking 2 international trips a year. Also, the concern that our future active travel years (we're in our mid 70's) are fewer than we'd like. Travel on...it makes us wiser and happy.

Tammy - I don’t know how to answer that question this year!!

We enjoyed our 4 week trip/tours in June. Came home for two weeks. Required to be at work the 2nd week july. Then off again for RS Scandinavian tour. This is when I experienced I don’t want to travel again! We arrived in Stockholm on 22nd July….. this next day we had to go home for Hubs Ill parent ( his dad passed a week later). We had been wanting to do this tour for years. I could of stayed myself but didn’t want to let DH to go home by hisself. We were up over 48 hours with no sleep. So many emotions going thru my head…. Tired, cranky, sad, upset, mad, disappointed etc. And going at end of July, everyone was traveling. Stockholm and Zurich were both in chaos at the airport. When I got home, I had no desire to travel again. Now I need to escape this place due yo what we have dealt with in my FIL death.

Good thing… I have 83 days to look forward to a River cruise down the Danube Christmas market.

I don’t wish our experience on anyone.

Kim

@Kim-I’m sorry for the loss of your FIL. How awful. So you had just started the tour and then had to leave and fly back home? Did RS let you reschedule or did you have to file a claim with your travel insurance? And I seem to remember that on your last RS trip your DH got sick? Gee, you aren’t having much travel luck.
I almost felt that way when my husband got Covid right before our RS Paris & HOF tour in April. We won’t be taking any RS tours till the testing requirements are gone.

Tammy …. We had not even started our tour. No refund from RS…. We submitted to travel insurance but have not heard anything yet.