Traveling for Erasmus is an experience that will leave you with all types of memories! Although most of them will be happy memories, you should be aware that homesickness is a feeling that reaches most internationals during their stay abroad. But no worries, we’ll help you prepare for it and push this negativity away in just a few simple steps!
Make your room feel like home
Decorate your room to make it your very own personal space where you feel safe and comfortable, just as you would feel in your room back home.
Decorating doesn’t have to be expensive, try shops like Tiger or Primark if you’re on a budget. They have a lot of decorations and accessories and have special items depending on the season (Halloween, Christmas…).
Remember to print pictures of your friends, family, pet, and whatever makes you happy to hang around your room! If you don’t have a printer, a lot of places offer printing services for cheap.
Buy candles or other scented items with a scent that comforts you to create an even cosier environment. If you are still on a budget, Primark or even your local grocery stores have a very good choice of ‘home fragrance’ products such as candles, bamboo aroma diffusers, scented sprays for fabrics, scented air fresheners, and so on…
Create a routine
Homesickness tends to kick in when you’re bored or when the difference in lifestyle is too brutal. Indeed, even without realizing it, your life in your hometown was marked with habits and routines that might be hard to recreate abroad. A sudden shift from those daily routines to a completely different lifestyle might make you feel homesick if you’re not mentally prepared for it.
This is why you must try to stick as much as you can to easy routines from home, that you can have in your Erasmus city. Keep your hobbies. Eg, you usually play basketball, well join a basketball team, or have basketball meetups with other internationals. If you play an instrument, try to bring it with you and keep practicing, etc…
Another important thing to do is to try new things! Set yourself some brand-new goals. Eg, learn the local language a little bit every day, try new workouts, and visit new places! This will create a new routine that’s specific to your Erasmus lifestyle, which will help you create a new home 😊
Keep in touch
You need to maintain your relationships by staying in contact with your close ones back at home. Make sure to tell them everything about your experience and share with them all your ups and downs.
Try Facetiming the people you miss often, seeing their faces and hearing their voices will always be comforting. Their support, even from a distance, will always be of great help when you feel down. You need to remember that people are waiting for you and missing you.
The best tip we could give you is to use apps like BeReal or Widgetpal for an original way to catch up with your friends and family. It might seem too simple and ridiculous to help with loneliness but trust our experience, it’s the little daily reminders that you still have loved ones that will work best to push the bad feelings away.
Make friends!
Being alone is the worst remedy against homesickness, even if you’re usually a loner. Trust us and our experience, sometimes it’s easy to get confused between wanting to spend some quality time alone and being scared of going out of your comfort zone. But you know what? Just because it’s your comfort zone doesn’t mean you’ll be the happiest in it. On the contrary. Erasmus is here to introduce you to a whole new life, a new country, a new city, and new and exciting experiences! Only you can’t enjoy any of that if you stay hidden in your room because you’re scared, and that would be a shame, wouldn’t it?
To make it easier for you, choose a room in a co-living or a flatshare. Getting to live with other young people in the same situation will push away loneliness. You’ll most likely be going through the same struggles as your other international roommates, so spend time with them, you’ll see the bond will come naturally and you just might end up finding a new family! How could you be lonely coming back home to new loved ones?!
Go out, and find group meetups and fun activities to meet new people. I know… easier said than done. But the only way to make it happen is to oversocialize!
In the end, to push homesickness away, you have to create your own “homelike” environment. It might seem complicated but it’s just a matter of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and once out of it, you’ll see there’s a whole world waiting for you outside! This a unique experience, don’t talk yourself out of it because you’re scared. So book a room in one of our amazing flatshares, find your new family abroad, and come live the experience of a lifetime!
