Living Abroad Magazine
Going 'Home' for a Holiday. Welcome Treat or Traumatic Trip?
The tickets are bought, the suitcases contain carefully thought out gifts for friends and family. You are going back to the UK to see everyone and you set off in anticipation of a great holiday, yippee!
A few weeks later and back in your adopted country, you contemplate the trip you have just been on. With a slight sense of hurt, you express surprise that not everyone was keen to hear about your experiences abroad. Surprisingly, even though you had travelled thousands of miles to go home, your friends didn’t seem willing to drive twenty to come and see you and hear about your exploits. Not everyone wanted to share your story (which you thought quite amusing) of how, in the greengrocers you mixed up the word naranja (orange) for arana (spider) with interesting consequences.
Welcome to the world of expatriate life and living abroad. For all the new experiences they bring, it’s likely that the one that you hadn’t even thought of, is the one of how you would feel when you set foot back on your own British soil. After all, you did all the research to move one way, but you never dreamed that you would have to go through a learning curve when visiting the country of your birth.
The joys of arriving home
Going home isn’t always disconcerting. Depending on where you are living, things can seem wonderful back in the UK. Our family went back after years away in a relative hardship posting, and Sainsburys seemed like paradise. We were like children let loose in a sweet shop and filled the trolley up to the brim with goods that had not been available to us for a few years. Conversely, there are those who find all the commercialism and consumer choice too excessive after living in a country where even basic facilities are hard to come by.
The joys of arriving back to the UK where among numerous other things, people drive sensibly, wear seatbelts, and speak your language is satisfying. That heady first sip of a pint in the pub is one of the many things you had been looking forward to. Yet in same local hostelry where you used to enjoy the friendly atmosphere and bonhomie, it now dawns on you, that maybe you don’t belong here anymore. You’ve moved on and it seems like others haven’t.
Tricky territory
Here comes the tricky territory bit, and a word of warning: although you may be tempted to spout forth on how great, interesting, and unusual life is where you live, not every one will want to know. And why should they? Best not fall into the trap that just because they seem intent on discussing the latest property price, or local issues (weren’t they the same local issues as before?) that their life is any less interesting than yours. After all you used to live there too, didn’t you?
Blank stares will often follow what seemed to you like an innocent comment, but if you say anything remotely pretentious, albeit unintentionally, then this can cause either resentment or ridicule. Writing out a cheque in a shop in Britain, having only arrived from South America the previous day, I started to write in the details, and then realised I was doing it in Spanish. I apologised.“Oh I’m so sorry I’ll have to start again, I am not used to writing in English, I live in Chile you know.” The shop assistants face said it all - “So what?”
Try to avoid comparisons and boastful observations “Gosh, the traffic congestion is so bad here, how can you stand it? or “where I live the weather is so good we can sit out on the balcony almost 300 days a year”. This will obviously not win you many friends. You may have had the bravado to get up and get out, but not everyone wants to or can do the same.
Taking the children “home”
If you have children who have been born outside the UK and they go home for a trip be prepared for them to see things differently. One family recently did a “roots” tour of where they grew up to show their children the places they had been reminiscing about. The walk to school, where they had “hung” out, where aunts and uncles lived. They said that after it all, their children’s impressions didn’t quite match up to their own memory of the place.
The onus is on you
It is not always the case that a trip home can leave you feeling uneasy. There are, of course, friends and relatives who will welcome you with open arms, who are desperate to see grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and are keen to know about your life abroad. Common consensus does seem to suggest though, that those who do are people who have travelled a lot themselves or, like you, at some stage in their life have lived away from their own home situation, so can identify with the issues you refer to and have similar stories of their own.
One expat got so fed up of travelling miles to see friends and relatives on his home leave, only to be met by indifference, decided to book himself into a hotel equidistant from everyone and invited all to come and see him. He even paid for their rooms. He felt it sorted out the wheat from the chaff. This of course is an expensive solution and not viable for everyone.
If you are visiting elderly parents who can’t travel or family who live scattered across the country, this means elaborate trips sometimes to all points of the compass. These flying visits sometimes end up being unsatisfactory for all. It isn’t much of a holiday either with a lot of logistics to work out. Often there is jet lag to contend with, along with sleeping in different beds, packing and unpacking. Yet the onus will be on you to go and see them and to make the effort, particularly if you have been away for a while.
There can be trips home where you are so happy to be back, it can make you very reluctant to leave again. This can often be the case for those who either haven’t quite settled in their adopted country and where for them the UK will always will be home, so the trip makes them very confused and even more unsettled.
Top Tips
Whichever way you feel about your trip back to Blighty, here are a few tips that might make your visit a tad easier.
- If you are going back to stay with family or friends remind the children that they will have to adapt to a different pattern of meal and bedtimes. Little children can’t always understand that Grandpa needs his afternoon nap otherwise he can get quite crotchety. Arrange some time where you take yourself and them away for a few hours to let them, and you get a breather. Don’t overstay your welcome with friends.
- Don’t get disappointed if everyone seems too busy to squeeze you into their schedule. For them, work and life can’t always stop for your grand trip home. Prioritise who you really want to see and plan these visits in advance.
- Allow time for some retail shopping to stock up on goodies and items which you have missed to see you through another year, opening that suitcase when back in your adopted country is something to look forward to, and can make it seem like Christmas all over again.
- Invite a friend you haven't seen for a while to join you on a shopping trip, this could be a worthwhile way of optimising your valuable time home.
- If it is at all possible within your budget and as an alternative, rent a place that is near everyone you want to see and ask them to come and visit you.
- Build in some time for a few days together as a family en route home, or plan a break (not visiting anyone) for later on in the year.
As after all going “home” for a holiday is sometimes anything but - a holiday.
