Have you ever felt homesick when on the road?
When I was 19 years old, I moved from a small village in the German country side to the big city Frankfurt. I wanted to study at the university, more than 400 km away from home. I really loved Frankfurt, I felt liberated from the closed culture of the village I came from. Still, I felt homesick, especially on Saturday nights. I missed the social contacts at home and going out with them.
When I moved to the Netherlands a couple of years later, I took some precautions. I took my bicycle, a school bag full of books, a backpack full of clothing and took the train from Frankfurt to Nijmegen. I was traveling ‘light’, but still had some place for a red table cloth. The red table cloth made me feel at home in this foreign country with the language I didn’t yet understand.
Moving or being on the road is quite alienating. You need a constant factor, when you are at a different venue, dressing room and lodging place every day. Instead of a table cloth, I could have used a picture, a stuffed animal, or a blanket, like the one Linus used to carry around.
What’s your recipe against homesickness on the road? What does make you feel comfortable and homey when traveling?