TripRoundUnder

First off, I should start by saying I’m no psychologist, but as we have found settling down after travelling for a year quite challenging, we thought people might learn from our experiences and know they’re not alone.

So, if you haven’t been here from the beginning we travelled around Australia for almost an entire year, navigating almost an entire lap of the continent recording our adventures on this blog! Like a lot of people, we never really had a set date of when we were going to end our travels or what we were going to do. In the end, we stopped almost by accident, as we were running very low on money and needed to find work. Lauren, a travel nurse ended up getting an agency contract in Hervey Bay, a larger town in South East Queensland and Steve quickly found work as a personal trainer. This was only meant to be short term, but we quickly realised that we liked Hervey Bay and wanted to stay for longer. In a whirlwind of events, we ended up buying a house, getting a puppy and basically settling down, at least for the meantime.

We’re not saying this was a bad idea or we regret our decision, but it has come with some challenges. For a little while, it was good to have a solid roof over our heads and not deal with the oppressive wet season heat and humidity we had been experiencing in the last few months in northern Australia. But, we have experienced FOMO and miss the freedom of our previous travelling lifestyle.

One of the biggest challenges was going back to a full-time work lifestyle, totally different from the carefree experience we had been living. Unfortunately, money runs the world and we also need to keep puppy Alfie in the lifestyle he is accustomed to! Something that may have been helpful in retrospect, could have been easing back into work rather than going full-time straight off the bat, although this totally depends on different circumstances. It is hard to have such a massive change in responsibilities and we are still adjusting to this.

FOMO or fear-of-missing-out is a big issue, not made any easier by social media posts from fellow travellers seemingly having the time of their lives while you’re stuck at work 9 hours a day. Something we try to remind ourselves is that social media always paints things in a perfect light. We’re guilty of it too, but I promise it wasn’t all freshwater swims and waterfalls in build up season Darwin, when its a minimum of 28 degrees and you’re sleeping in your car!

Something we have tried to do as much as work will allow, is going on weekend camping trips back in the troopy. This is helped greatly by living in Hervey Bay, as it is perfectly placed to adventure up and down the coast of South East Queensland to places such as the Sunshine Coast and 1770, just to name a few. Although it’s not a permanent fix, it certainly helps to get back out and adventure when you can.

Talking about how you are feeling is really important, it’s okay to not be perfectly happy going back to ‘normal life’ and you’re not selfish for feeling that way. Whether that be to your partner or someone more professional for serious mental health issues, talking is good!

Planning for future travels is also another good tip as it gives you a goal to work for and also means you are well prepared! Nothing worse than heading off on the road and you’ve forgotten something major!

In conclusion, we’ve had our ups and downs since stopping travelling and we’re not done forever, but gee sometimes you wish you were watching a Western Australia sunset by a campfire! It’s okay to not be okay and I guess we’re always here if somebody wants to vent to us on Instagram or anything like that(@triproundunder)!