Journaling Prompts for Post-Travel Blues and Re-entry
Coming home after a significant trip—especially after extended travel, a transformative experience, or time abroad—can be surprisingly hard. The ordinary life you left doesn't feel quite like it fits anymore. The people around you can't fully understand what you saw or how it changed you. And the life you came back to, while real and yours, can feel smaller or more constraining than it did before you left. Writing about re-entry can help you understand what the travel revealed about what you want, and how to carry what you learned back into the life you're living.
Journaling Prompts
What specifically feels different about your ordinary life after this experience? Name the things that feel too small, too constrained, or simply different than they did before you left.
What did you learn about yourself while traveling—about what you're capable of, what you value, what you need—that you hadn't known before?
What do you miss most about where you were or who you were while you were there? Is there any version of that thing you can carry into your daily life?
What does this experience clarify about what you want your life to look like? Not a permanent vacation, but a more honest version of your current life—what would that look like?
How do you integrate what changed in you into the life you've come back to? What would it mean to let this experience actually change something, rather than just being a memory?