No one ever tells you about the heartbreak you feel after returning from the trip of a lifetime. It’s the type of heartbreak that lasts longer than your breakup from your first love. It’s the type of heartbreak that lingers in your heart and makes you wanderlust forever. Now, I’m not just talking about the long weekend trip with your best friends to your favorite getaway town. I’m talking about the trips that are unexpected, a journey across the country, or otherwise lifechanging. Where you experience euphoria on the daily and you have to keep reminding yourself that this is real life. How you just want to keep searching for the next big adventure. My heart belongs to every place I’ve experienced, it feels as if I will never feel at home in one place again. I’m only truly at peace when I’m in an airport. When everything in the “real world” just feels so insignificant. And my job that I love and worked so hard to get, is more boring than ever. Traveling is about the connections you make with new people. The freedom you feel in your heart. The joy of not knowing where the journey will take you. Knowing you’re excited to wake up tomorrow at the ass crack of dawn because you won’t be stuck in an office all day. These are a few of the many things that I miss about my spontaneous trip across the United States. A part of me feels like it has been missing ever since. Let me explain. I realized that I have a bad case of the post travel blues after my spontaneous three month “vacation” back in 2021. It all started when I was in Costa Rica, and I got the dreaded phone call that I had lost my job due to the pandemic. I had a choice to make. I could have easily been sad and let that call ruin the rest of my trip. But instead, I cried for all of 5 minutes, pulled myself together, and decided to allow myself to enjoy my new freedom. And luckily for me, I have incredible friends that supported me through that entire journey. We lived to the fullest on that trip in Costa Rica, and after debating if I would extend my stay in the country, I ultimately decided to pack up my things at home, and travel around to different places out west and wherever I could find a couch to crash on. Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, California, Nevada, and even another mini vacation from the wild west winter to Cancun. Check out the TFB Gallery for some photos from this trip, and to hear more about this incredible lifechanging journey, be sure to check out the article below. [TFB Gallery] [That Road Trip Bitch] I’ve now been back in the “real world” for almost 2 years since then. And I’m constantly searching for the next time my heart can feel that freedom again. I struggle to feel joy in being in one place for too long, which creates problems in other areas of my life. Again, we will get into that later. [The Trouble with Wanderlust] I had the experience of a lifetime, and I am forever grateful for being able to have the opportunity to have gone on this trip. The funding, the flexibility, the support from my friends. I couldn’t help but feel guilty that I was feeling more than just happiness after the trip that I will never forget. I struggled with anxiety, symptoms of depression, and some might argue that I struggled with a slight alcohol addiction after this trip. They may have been onto something, so I wanted to better understand why this was happening and why I was feeling this way. I’ve done some research on how our brains react to the happiness we feel when we do things we enjoy, and how the chemicals in our brains and bodies can produce physical symptoms. When we do things we enjoy, there is an increase in dopamine and serotonin that is released in our body. Read more about these chemicals from these sources: [The Science of Serotonin] [Dopamine: The Pathway to Pleasure] Dopamine is the happy chemical that gives you a euphoric feeling. It also is processed through our brains as reinforcement. When we enjoy doing something, we want more of it. Serotonin is the chemical that tells our bodies how to physically perform. It is responsible for influencing our memory, happiness, and learning, but also regulates hunger, sex drive, and even body temperature. This is where our “post travel blues” come from. Dopamine keeps us wanting to go on the next trip, visit our friend that moved across the country, or check off the next place on our bucket list. The restriction of not being able to travel with the structure of my new job is what correlated to my questionable addiction to being social and drinking. Serotonin is the reason for feelings of sadness and anxiety and other physical symptoms as discussed in the article above. The imbalance of both of these chemicals is the product of my post travel blues. Navigating these chemical changes is a part of the journey, and is what keeps me wanting to find experiences, things, and people that satisfy my post travel blues. If you are experiencing something similar, try to stay optimistic, because you are not alone. That is the beauty of experiencing the world through traveling. We get to meet people that are also on a journey for searching for dopamine and serotonin. And when you find those people, your post travel blues don’t feel too bad. Where is your next bucket list trip going to take you? Remember to always find a reason to laugh,