Keeping in Touch with Home whilst you Travel – If you travel a lot, it becomes hard to maintain friendships and relationships. If you are rarely at home, it’s all too easy to lose touch with people. Here’s some ideas how to keep in touch with home.
A life filled with travel can be a fulfilling one. Is there anything better than seeing the world? Trying new foods, learning new recipes, meeting people from different backgrounds and seeing as much as you possibly can? If you are lucky enough to be able to travel, then you absolutely should. It can change your outlook, help you to appreciate everything that you have got and give you a new way to look at the world. It’s an opportunity to learn new languages and skills and make lifelong friends. Travel can be fun, it can be exciting, and it gives your life a great sense of worthiness that you’ll never get sitting on your sofa.
But, if you travel a lot, it becomes hard to maintain friendships and relationships. If you are rarely at home, it’s all too easy to lose touch with people. When you do come home for a while, it can feel as though even though you’ve got loads to talk about, your relationships have stalled, and things don’t feel quite right anymore.
Your travels won’t be the same if you’ve got no one to share your adventures with: no one to tell and no one to be there for you when you need help and advice. When you are travelling the world, it’s always a good idea to have people back home that you can turn to when you need to. People that you can ring for a chat when you are feeling a little homesick and good friends that can pick you up when you need a boost or get you out of a tricky situation when one presents itself.
You might also need to keep in touch with work, of course. If you work as a freelancer, making money as you travel, you might need a good wifi connection to send work and communicate with clients or agencies. But, for now, let’s focus on the more enjoyable task of keeping in touch with your friends and family, and some of the fabulous ways that you can do it.
Send Postcards
Modern technology, apps and devices have very much taken over how we communicate. Even sat in our own homes, we can text our partner downstairs to ask for a coffee. Most of us talk to people on Twitter more than we speak to people in our houses, and it’s not uncommon for people working in offices to send emails across the room throughout the day. When was the last time you wrote a letter? If you are under 25, have you ever written a letter?
Postcards have become something that we buy when we’re on holiday to get a pretty picture to keep for ourselves. We rarely think of sending them to other people back home. But, there’s something rather romantic about a good old fashioned postcard, and your friends and family will love receiving them. It also gives them something that they can keep if they choose to.
Get into the habit of sending a quick postcard to a loved one if something special happens or when you arrive at a new location. It’s an easy and fast way to share a memory and create a keepsake.
Send Recipes
Sometimes we don’t keep in touch because we’ve got nothing to say. Then, as time goes by without contact, it becomes harder to say anything at all. Sending recipes can be a great way to keep in touch when nothing much is happening, and there’s nothing worthwhile to report. Jot down a quick recipe for a local delicacy on a card and pop it in the post. It keeps the lines of communication open, offers a great gift to a friend, and means that you’ll always have access to these recipes. In the future, going back and looking at all of the recipes that you’ve sent over the years can bring back some fantastic memories.
Use Social Media
Social media is huge nowadays. Businesses use them to build their audience and communicate with their customers. People make friends online; they develop relationships and reunited with old friends. We share our lives; sometimes if we’re honest, we share a little too much.
However you feel about social media; it is a great way to keep in touch with your friends and family and share some of your adventures with them while you travel. You might want to keep your accounts private, and either delete some old friends or create a private list of close friends, so that you are only sharing with specific people instead of the whole world.
Share Photographs
Most of us take countless photos when we travel. We photograph people that we meet and the sights that we see. You might have plenty of pictures of your legs sat by pools around the world or beach selfies. Even if you share these on Instagram, you can’t guarantee that your loved ones will see them. If they follow a lot of people, it’s easy to miss the more important things.
So, create a Google Photos account. It’s a great way to save space on your phone and camera, and an easy way to share photos with your friends and family back home. Just share your albums with them, and they’ll have access as soon as you upload new images. If you plan to use the cloud often, an Unlimited plan SIM can help to ensure you never run out of data when you need it.
Phone Home
Perhaps the best way to keep in touch with home isn’t anything creative or unusual. It’s a good old phone call. Ring your friends and family for a good chat whenever you’ve got some free time, or you feel a little homesick.
Video Call
Some of us love video calling. Others aren’t as keen and find the idea of being on camera awkward and uncomfortable. But, there’s no denying that it’s a great way to communicate while you travel. Being able to see people, as well as hear them can help you to feel closer. It also gives you a way to have a more in-depth conversation, as you watch their body language and read them in a way that you can’t do over the phone or via text.
Stick to Regular Communication
Make regular appointments to communicate, either on video or phone call, and stick to it. But, remember to be realistic. Don’t tell every friend and family member that you will call them every evening. You won’t have time. You’ll start forgetting and people will be upset. Stick to a realistic goal like once a week. Then, whatever happens, keep this appointment even if it’s just a quick hello.
Start a Blog
Blogging can be a great way to earn money and reach a wide audience. But, it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be something that you commit hours to and take seriously if you don’t want to. It can just be a way to share videos, photos and stories from your travels with interested people. If you aren’t worried about turning your blog into something more professional, it doesn’t have to take time or cost money. It can just be a cool hobby and an exciting way to share your travels.
Set Reminders for Important Dates
The last thing that you want to do while you are away is to forget important dates like birthdays and anniversaries. Your friends and family back home will feel like you’ve forgotten them. They might be hurt and upset. Some, won’t mind, but in other cases missing too many events could start to affect your relationship.
So, make sure you put anything that you want to remember in your Google Calendar, and set a reminder for a few days before and another for on the day. Use online card services, or just send a quick celebratory text to let them know that you are thinking about them.
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