Post Trip Blues from a Once in a Lifetime Trip - How to Not Move On

Start planning for another trip. :-) And I'm only half kidding. You don't have to do anything specific, but just maybe peruse some blogs, pick up a guidebook at the library or read through some of the forum posts.

Or go a little farther—since you liked Italy so much, maybe start learning some Italian? Immerse yourself in a travel project, like creating a photo book on Shutterfly, or use markers, scissors and photos to create your own "Italy" inspiration board.

Anticipation is one of the best things about travel, so any of those will keep your travel memories alive, but also make you start thinking to the future (and the next trip).

Those are great tips Mardee, thank you. I did order a journal today and will actually print photos rather than just having them sit on my phone and camera disk. And you are right about the anticipation. We booked this one in 3 weeks so didn't immerse as much as I would like but we did have alot of fun shopping for clothes appropriate for the trip. Also have African Safari planning in the back of my head but for today, I will "sit" in Ravello with a glass of wine, eating the best lunch with possibly a cat at my feet and then follow it up with a swim in Poseidon's cave. I'll add that this has been helpful too, thanks again!

I just want to continue to relish in the amazingness of this trip and not get slammed back into every day life and "forget."

1. Write a trip report! Document your day by day experience, including what you ate, saw, felt. Write up hotel and restaurant recommendations.

2. Post the above here https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports

3. Start planning the next trip.

:-)

I've been back from Scotland for a month, and I'm still in the mode of "I want to go back!" Probably doesn't help that I started watching the Outlander series shortly after my return so I'm still reveling in the beauty of the Scottish Highlands several evenings a week (I had read several of the books before the trip, thought I 100% did NOT originally choose Scotland because of Outlander :-D). The best thing I've done is just keep trip planning and dreaming. Share the photos with people who'll appreciate them, create new itineraries, organize your budget and time to make that next trip a reality. And post on these forums with other people who are in the same boat as you!

I keep the magic trip feeling alive by doing a few things:

Always bring back souvenirs that I will use (tea towels, a mug, clothing or jewelry, generally) or enjoy--just finished my box of floral cream chocolates from London last night. Still have a couple small bags of Cheesy Wotsits, best to enjoy before they get stale, which has happened with other goodies. My office at work has 3 small folk art paintings from Hungary that make me smile every time I look at them.

Books, TV shows and movies--my first choices are always pertaining to places I've been or might want to visit. After Edinburgh last September it was all things Scottish--finally watched Outlander, and discovered historical fiction by Sara Sheridan--her descriptions take me right back to not just Edinburgh but a fascinating building called the Rock House that I marveled at for 5 days straight as it was right across from my hotel window.

I keep a travel journal as I go, recording events and impressions as they occur. I take many pictures but never do anything with them besides post on FB.

I am half Hungarian and after my 2nd visit to Budapest I decided to learn the language, no easy feat but it's a link to my heritage and a favorite country so I persevere.

My FB feed is full of pages pertaining to places and cities I love--I follow the Tower of London and the Ravenmaster, the Royal School of Needlework and a Mudlarking page, several pages devoted to Hungarian life and cooking, the Operettszinhaz and the flea market I love so much, Ecseri piac.

Essentially, I have found ways to incorporate places I've traveled to into my daily life.

I take all my pictures and do a Shutterfly book. Making it as soon as I get home helps me relive the fun. Plus when the book comes in the mail I can relieve the memories whenever I want to.

So many great ideas!

For me what works is to watch any shows on the location, even on YouTube. Plan the next vacation. Use your photos and make an album online that you can order. I use mixbook for my trip albums and it is very easy to use. Find a local shop that may carry some Italian goodies whether it be items or food, or look online for something.

I think coming here to "talk" about it is already a great step ! Just acknowledging that you had such a great trip -- and be sure to recognize how wonderful that is -- and that it is something you want to hold on to is a wonderful thing -- especially when it was in commemoration of such a momentous occasion. Congratulations on your anniversary !

Then sharing thoughts like this with like-minded people also helps. Because we too know it can be tough to be tossed back into the real world.

I don't have any advice, I guess I am just glad you are recognizing this is presenting difficulty for you and trying to find the best ways to face it. Welcome back! Love the ideas people are sharing.

These are all terrific ideas and what a lovely community. Thanks all for sharing, this has helped (a bit ; ) !

this has helped (a bit ; ) !

What? Chatting with some online buds doesn't take the place of a private boat trip on the Amalfi Coast? ☺

Hahaha! Actually it has as you are like minded travel lovers and get the "grief." I love these ideas and will act on many of them. Looking forward to continuing the chat as well.

My husband and I were talking about this just this morning. He had a grand adventure this summer and then I just got back from Iceland with one of my best friends, and we were both saying that while it was nice to come home to each other, we both really missed where we were. We will be back next summer, but it doesn't make use miss it any less.

Wow, great suggestions from all the above posters!

Excellent suggestion by Mardee to start planning another trip!
Excellent suggestion by Mary to write a trip report and post it here! It will help you relive every day of your trip. I have gone back and read some of my old trips reports here, and it helped me relive (and re-enjoy!) my trips.

Important: Keep on dreaming of future tours and trips!
Read some of the excellent scrapbooks posted here, as I'm sure you'll enjoy them; plus it will give you ideas for what tours or trips to take in the future!
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/scrapbooks/tour-alum-scrapbooks

You wrote in your original post: "I like to talk and revisit highlights."
I would absolutely find one of the travel talk meet-ups that people here on this forum do on a monthly basis. Check out this link to see if there's a meetup group near you:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/travel-meetings

These friends meet once a month at a Panera Bread cafe or local coffee shop on certain Saturday mornings to talk travel. Read some of the threads there and you will see that they have a great time.
You will meet people who are eager to hear you tell all about your trip. And you will hear them all discussing upcoming trips they have planned. This will lift your spirits.

Some of these meetings are by Zoom online, so it would be easy to join in.

We try to bring something home with us from our travels, whether is apero before dinner or a new recipe from the country we just visited. It doesn’t last long, but long enough for us to transition with a soft landing.

What a considerate and understanding group. Some days, I like to play this little hurtful game called "Last time this week, we were...." LOL! I will definitely be implementing some of these tips, they are great and so generous of all of you to offer up what has worked for you. Love the phrasing "soft landing" and the meet ups sound terrific too as we know many will ask "How was the trip" but they don't really want the long answer. I'm new to this forum so will definitely be poking around and exploring the tools. Did grab some limoncello, focaccia and prosciutto last night, looking forward to tonight's apertivo!

Join one of the zoom sessions posted under Travel Groups. We talk about anything and everything travel related. There is one tomorrow.

you've gotten some great suggestions here. I experience the same post-vacay blues too. In particular I try to make my meals more "european"....things like having cappuccino in the morning instead of drip coffee...lingering over our meals at the table instead of eating while watching sports....reading and watching movies/shows about where we just came from. Soon enough we slide back into our everyday ways, but it's nice to try to prolong the vacation feeling. And for me, planning another trip, any trip, also works wonders.

Thank you, @kwiltse, for posting this. I'm guilty of "moving on" too quickly from my travels. This time I'll make a conscious effort to savor every moment of the wonderful trip I'm returning home from.

Your self-described "silly post" reminds me of a few things...

I have been writing trip reports. I enjoy the process of revisiting my trip as I write it. I need to remember that they are as much for me as anyone. When I go back and reread them, it takes me back to everything I loved about each trip.

I read your post in another thread (places that left you speechless.) I bet you'll enjoy reading that post and this one again. And again. To relive your trip.

In a way, these posts are your "trip report." Tell us (and your future self) more!!

Roku has a screen saver feature called "Photo Stream". I upload trip pictures to it, and leave my TV on when I'm in that room so it becomes a giant digital picture frame. My husband and I will occasionally sit and look at the pictures while we're having coffee and reminisce about the different locations we've visited. It's also fun to have it on when friends come over, as they get to enjoy our pictures without necessarily being subjected to the dreaded post-trip 2-hour slide show with added commentary :D

What a fantastic thread - I love it!! Especially since I could have almost written it myself as I too have been immersed back into "life" post-trip. I have been "hoarding the joy" by working on my travel journal and I hope to write up a trip report here in the next few weeks. There have been some marvelous suggestions here that I am planning to steal. Wishing you all the best OP!

Not silly at all! Every idea I had has been mentioned in the responses, but I'll just echo what works for me:

1. I make my photo book soon after returning.

2. I write a trip report, using some of the great ones I've read as models. I really enjoy the comments I get back, and thanking the people who helped me. I find that rereading my trip report is just as important as looking at my photo book when I want to remember a trip.

3. I joined our local Travel Group and share my photo books with other travelers who actually want to share our trip experiences. And when we meet on zoom I have the chance to make a short presentation with a select set of photos to share the trip with the group.

4. I still occasionally buy shortbread to remind me of our trip to Scotland 25 years ago, and I was just thinking that I should buy a bottle of limoncello as a reminder of our first Italy trip (also our very first trip to Europe). Every now and then I'll make an Aperol Spritz, which we discovered on our second trip to Italy.

I'm not big on souvenirs, but I do like to get a tea towel on each trip. I hang them on the oven door, changing every few weeks, and don't actually use them. They are just for display.

Ah travel, the curse and the blessing. Many great ideas so far, I'd only add that my Thanksgiving dinners are always the cuisine from the country/countries I visited that year, so I'd start planning/practicing/taking a class to make an Italian feast for the holiday dinner (I made a very complicated timpano the year I visited Italy).

I really support the writing a Trip Report and making a photo album. I enjoy the process, the actual results, and revisiting.
When I look at my past Trip Reoorts and photo albums, I'm amazed at the details I would have forgotten forever without the reminders. I also enjoy sharing my experiences with the folks here, many venturing for the first time. And- the Facebook groups for the specific regions are fun, filled with real-time, on the ground info.
Wishing you a great next adventure!

I was looking today at my little travel journals, which I started with the encouragement of local forum travel friends. I jot little notes throughout my trip, and I also paste in little trip ephemera - snippets of colorful paper maps, postcards that I buy specifically to paste in my journals, tickets stubs, business cards from favorite restaurants or shops. It's amazing the things I am reminded of when I flip through my past trip journals.

The journals themselves, I buy during one trip to use on the next - so that I don't have to wait to start my journal until I find one on my current trip. I'll be using a souvenir journal that I got in London for my upcoming trip to Spain.

Also-
I have a place in my kitchen for four 12" x 16" wall canvas prints. I like canvas because there's no glare issue, and no framing required. Every morning I get up and see four of my favorite places: Varenna, Lake Como, Venice back canal, and two from our most recent trip, the windmills at Kinderdijk. I have found a very inexpensive online place to produce these.
Have fun with your memories!

In my home, I have two framed posters, one of Istanbul and one of Scandinavia, that were advertisements of airlines. I also have a stylized map of Paris and the Tokyo metro map. In our family room, my husband has official movie poster frames mounted and he changes them up every so often. He likes to have foreign posters of American films. My recent trip was solo to Paris and to surprise me he purchased a Midnight in Paris poster and Good Girls Go to Paris poster. I see these every day and they bring joy.

At work, I share a rectangular office with another person. There is wall space above the short part of my L shaped countertop desk. It is filled with 8 x 10 framed photos of my trips going back to 2015. I have photos of: Cliffs of Moher, a Norwegian fjord, The red and yellow buildings in the square at Gamla Stan, Stockholm, classic cars in Cuba, the Cathedral in Florence, Cannon Beach in Oregon, An Icelandic waterfall, The Blue Mosque, my son at Ephesus, A "gingerbread" house in Cicmany, Slovakia, Old Town Prague, the view of Paris through the clock at Musee d'Orsay, the Tori Gate off of Miyajima Island, and both of my sons at a baseball game in Osaka.

If I forget why I am at work, all I have to do is look up!
Next, I will be starting on the long wall that runs behind our desks. Luckily, my office mate is good with it.

Hi! Glad we can share in your post-travel therapy session! ; )

• I like to take a cooking class each time I travel, and then it’s a pleasant flashback when I make the dishes or pastries again at home.
  
• I do always share a trip report here on the forum. It’s helpful to others, plusI print a copy and keep it with any paper souvenirs of the trip. I also bookmark them here for quick reference if someone asks a question about I location, etc. I probably reread my previous year’s trip at least six times, and I savored all of them the years Covid prevented overseas travel.
• I like to print an on-line photo book, but I don’t make one for several months. Otherwise, it would be too difficult at first to narrow down the photos - LOL! Time helps weed out the ones that aren’t as important to me.
• I host one of the monthly local travel group meetings. It is the cure for finding an environment where people actually do want to hear the details of your fun trip! ; ) Our January meeting has typically been a Zoom meeting because we can get a good amount of snow here (north Idaho).
• I read this years ago, and it’s stuck with me - paraphrased… “Close your eyes, and you can be back at that special place again. What do you hear? What do you smell? Bring back a pleasant memory at any time.”
• Along with that last point, I purposely take a mental snapshot of a place when I am traveling now. Often it is just one location on a trip. You mentioned Ravello. My adult daughter & I were sitting on the bench overlooking the church and view far below when we were the first two in one of the gorgeous Ravello gardens. I purposely looked around intently for a few moments, closed my eyes, listened to the calm & quiet, and committed it to memory. So, when someone mentions the Amalfi Coast, that scene is imprinted for instant recollection.
• I love Italy and will look up news articles, etc. of cities where I am going next or recently have been.

Such a creative and generous group with all these wonderful ideas. I just love them all and even being on this board has helped to recall lovely memories. I got my journal yesterday and have all our receipts and cards from our various stops and so will begin on the scrap booking. As one poster mentioned, the pictures are very hard because there are so many, LOL! I also like the travel groups because as another poster said, you are with people that really want to hear the stories. I will transfer my journaling into a trip report and wish I had brought one along with me, I will next time. The Roku idea is also a great one to help others avoid the dreaded "slideshow." LOL. This group has been so lovely, you can tell that you are genuinely interested and excited to share. Keep them coming and thank you!

It sounds like you really enjoyed your trip that you created some memories that will be long cherished :)

Do not know if this will work for you -- maybe you can do it over the holidays, if your daughter is off at school now:

When we have traveled, post-trip, we always gathered those who helped us (friends who took us to the airport, friends who provided travel advice, friends who collected our mail/newspapers, etc..............all of them were invited to a special meal at our home, and I would always focus on the foods of the country we visited. I printed a little menu card for each place setting. If there were flowers that also helped to tell the story (like tulips for Amsterdam), I would use those on the table, too. For Italy, I would serve the food in the order in which we would have enjoyed it there (antipasti, primo, etc.). That gave everyone a chance to talk about the differences in serving style and the foods. Of course, I would use wines from each country. Sometimes with certain places, I had to get a little creative (like penguin shaped/decorated cookies for Antarctica) and hot chocolate "with a kick" as National Geo served on the expedition), but you get the idea.....just something special your friends might not otherwise experience, and it also gives you a chance to tell a bit about the experience, as THEY enjoy it now, too.

Then, my husband and I would select and print our TOP 10 photos to share........and we told friends in advance we would be sharing just the Top 10. Trust me, no one complained about not seeing more. The worst is when someone inflicts, photo by photo 100 pictures and then the explanations. So, TOP 10, that's it. If someone really truly wants to see more, then invite them back or give them a link to where you can share photos.

But, over the years when we traveled, it gave friends who might not normally see each other the chance to gather each time we returned, and we were able to offer a nice thank you.

I chuckled when I read the "this time last week we were........." comment. That is a fun way to privately relive your trip. We are doing that right now with a "trip of all trips" that we took last year. Today, it would be "honey, do you know that this time last year you were on the camel playing polo in India?" Yesterday (a year ago), he would have been meeting the specially trained rats that detect landmines in Cambodia). So, yes, it does help to relive the memories privately and in a very special way. Travel memories are precious memories.

Travel is a gift to yourself........and also to others, as you become a more world-sensitive person.

Buy a bottle of Apperol and have those spritzers at home. No one drinks them in the US, so you will be transported in your mind. Watch some YouTube videos of Italy as you have your spritzer.