Welcome to Episode 4 of my “Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure” podcast.
As you know, I’ve just had an 11-week trip around Oceania & Sri Lanka, and arriving back in the UK has sent my mood a little low. Though I’ve now been back for a bit over three weeks, I’m still not quite back into my old way of thinking – everything still feels a little strange. I guess it’s a form of Reverse Culture Shock, where being back in your everyday life, staying in the one place for an extended period of time, and surrounded by things that are long familiar, becomes quite a jolt to the system after having been away for so long and travelling from place to place regularly, eating different foods all the time, etc. I think it’s also partly because I no longer have a ‘routine’ in my daily life in the UK so every day feels like Saturday – it might be different if I had a proper job to go back to!
To that end, the latest episode of my podcast is all about these feelings, how they affect me, and what I’m doing to mitigate them (spoiler: probably not as much as I should be doing!). Timely, perhaps, for #WorldMentalHealthDay (the day I recorded it, “yesterday” in terms of publishing date).
I talk about:
* My recent 11 week adventure around New Zealand, Vanuatu, Australia, and Sri Lanka
* How I felt on returning home
* A little bit of introspection about what I’m good at and want to do
* The idea of ‘routine’ and why it may be important
* Comfort Zones and how I (need to) step out of them more often
The “lesser-known destination of the week” this week is Hamilton, in New Zealand.
You can listen via the feed above, or via Spotify, or on your podcast app of choice 🙂 Let me know if it isn’t, by the way, and I’ll see what I can do.
As always, if you have anything to say about the topic, or indeed about my podcasting in general, leave a comment or let me know. There is a Facebook group for my podcast that you’re free to join: Click here!
Contributions in this podcast came from:
* Gemma & Campbell at “Highlands to Hammocks”,
* Shon Rand from “Our Travelling Zoo”,
* Tim at “Travelling Light Blog”,
* Laura Lundahl, who has an account at Medium, and
* my friend Inga Ollars, doesn’t seem to have a website or Twitter, but is on Instagram.