Coming home is a different story. The same three-hour journey seems to drag on between layovers, traffic and rest area food. THE Biscoff lost its novelty; THE in-flight movies fall flat. As the minutes pass, you start to wonder, “How could we have done this?” » and “Why my God, why?” You swear to never leave the house again.
How can one way of doing things seem so different from the other?
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When they say “it's the journey, not the destination”, that's the journey there we romanticize, not necessarily the return journey.
Jonathan Goldsonauthor and ethicist, said when we travel in a new place, we are in a better free space. “There is an expectation that something more exciting, something more interesting, something new, something fun awaits us,” he said. “It makes the journey part of the experience.”
On the other hand, the return trip seems disappointing, says Goldson.
Neuropsychologist Sanam Hafeez, who practices in New York, says it's similar to the experience of your daily commute. On the way to work, you start the day in great shape with a lot of work to do. But when you're exhausted at the end of the day, the feeling is more like, 'I just want to go home already,'” she said.
Hafeez experiences this after long weekends at his vacation home in the mountains. She's done the journey enough that there's no mystery about how long it takes; just the growing pile of tasks looming in his future.
“That's been my experience, especially traveling from coast to coast,” Gary Small, chairman of psychiatry at Hackensack University Medical Center and author of “The Bible of Memory”. “You really can’t wait to get home and see the family again.” You've had enough.”
Small compares it to going back to school. Toward the end of the day, “we were always looking at that clock and waiting for it to strike 3:15 p.m., and those last few minutes seemed to take forever,” he said. “We wanted to go out, come home and play. The psychological component really colors it.
Or maybe it's the looming weight of post-holiday blues. The Germans even have a word for it, says travel planner Sandra Weinacht: Post-Urlaubs depression. Translation: post-vacation depression. As the saying goes: time flies when you're having fun. Maybe the time ramp when you are sad.
When the journey home doesn't seem any longer
In a highly unscientific way survey I conducted on Instagram Stories, 126 respondents said the trip seemed longer on the way back, while 41 said it seemed longer on the way back. A handful of participants from the latter camp sent messages forcefully defending their experience.
Sometimes the journey home seems shorter because it East shorter thanks to tailwind phenomenon – especially when flying east – which can speed up planes. This could obviously work in reverse, making the trip shorter.
But sometimes it's just a feeling. Hafeez and Small emphasize the “round trip effect” which argues that the first leg of a journey can seem longer because of our tendency to inaccurately predict how long it will take. We can guess that the path will pass faster than it does and end up having a “violation of expectations” therefore.
“On the way back, because you've already had a longer trip, the way back can actually seem shorter in comparison,” Hafeez said.
It is also possible that on the way back, you will have a little practice. The path may seem mentally taxing, but once you know the route, Small says it can seem less difficult.
The round trip effect usually happens when you travel somewhere for the first time. So if you take your usual summer vacation — the kind of journey you know so well you could get there with your eyes closed — the return journey can seem like a stretch.
Small recommends introducing novelty into the return trip to mitigate the advantage. “That’s where the time warp comes in,” he said. “Focusing on the anticipation of getting there rather than focusing on the present moment and enjoying it.”
As a brain health and memory expert, Small often recommends that people “practice but don't strain your brain.” He says this could include doing puzzles (if you're not driving, obviously), engaging in conversations, or taking different routes to challenge your mind during transportation.
“When you don't know the route and you figure it out, you're kind of in the moment rather than anticipating the future,” Small said.
Hafeez recommends downloading a lot of podcasts or audiobooksor arrange telephone meetings with people you would like to meet if you plan to be in the car for a long time.
Or you can completely change the way you travel. Susan Sherren, founder of the travel agency Couture Travel, encourages customers to plan their trips with a “bell curve” route. Start the vacation easy, crescendoing in the exciting, action-packed days, then slowing down the pace before the end so you don't feel so exhausted.
You can also plan activities to look forward to when you return home to soften a crash landing into your normal routine. Every time I complete my trip with a buffer dayI am forever grateful.
