Travelling the World, How I combat homesickness

It’s been yet another crazy year for me and C&C, we’re just over half the way into 2019 and I’ve been home in the UK for no longer than three weeks at any given time. It’s been madness but magnificent all at the same time.

I’ve been travelling almost full time now for the last three years but since moving in to my new flat in London town and welcoming my nephew into the world, I have, for the very first time, started to find myself feeling terribly homesick when I’m away from home.

Although it’s a new and bizarrely welcoming feeling I’ve had to take some conscious steps towards coping with the separation anxiety of being away from my friends and now extended family and not one of the actions I am about to list before you now would be possible without the aid of my trusty, country roaming, mobile phone.

Here’s how I combat homesickness whilst travelling the world

– Keeping In Touch with family and friends

Seems like a no-brainer I know but the most obvious way in which my mobile has helped keep me calm whilst travelling is the classic function that it was first made to do, the simple phone call and humble text message. Being able to speak to my friends and family at any given moment no matter where I am in the world is the most soothing and uplifting thought and even if I don’t necessarily have a long conversation with them a simple emoji swap between the two of us is enough to fill that void of not having them directly by my side.

– Being able to work whilst travelling

Blogging and keeping my social media channels consistently full of content is a big part of my job and being able to do all of that on my mobile is a godsend but this is just a small part of what I do for a living. My money earning profession, as most of you as most of you already know, is presenting and for this I always have to be at the end of an email ready to submit and voice clip or showreel in seconds. When I applied for my anchor role with TravelXP after my initial selection I was asked to submit a short video on why I was perfect to host a show in Cyprus. I had a window of just an hour to record and submit the video to the production team and I was, at the time in Rome on a press trip. So having my phone with me was invaluable in that moment as I was able to locate quiet corner, film a piece to camera and submit it all within the space of 20 minutes, all with this teeny device that I never go anywhere without!

– Keeping up with the lives of those at home

Whilst there will always be some controversy surrounding social media, there is no denying that being able to have a daily browse over what your family and friends are up to is the most incredibly uplifting daily activity when you are away from home. If I’m feeling detached from my world at home I always know that I’m an app away from reconnecting with my support group, they don’t have to be there with me physically, just seeing their smiley faces pop up on my screen reminding me or informing me of what they are up to is enough to settle my restless soul.

– Discovering new things to do in the location I’m visiting

When I’m travelling around 50 % of the time I’ll be doing so solo for work and whilst I have always been fortunate enough to work with great teams of people when filming, once the day is completed the evenings can be quite lonely as everyone goes their separate ways to relax or continue to work in some cases. So with the world’s window to opportunity available on my handset I will often spend a few minutes searching nice walks in the area or the best restaurants or even somewhere to simply sit and watch the sunset. Having the information available in my phone means I keep myself busy and I have less time to miss people and my day-to-day life at home.

– Capturing the moments I want to share on my return home

Being able to capture the moments that I am fortunate enough to enjoy whilst I’m travelling makes being away from my friends and family so much more bearable because I get to live these incredible moments more than once, by showing my loved ones the tales in my phone’s camera roll. When I return home from a trip away or catch up with a friend whom I’ve not seen for months my favourite thing to do is sit and scroll with them talking through each photo and video and taking them and their imagination right back there with me!

My phone is my lifeline when I’m travelling and the ability to ‘stay connected’ is a luxury I’ll never take for granted. 

This is a paid partnership article with Three, a mobile phone supplier in the UK as part of their Phones Are Good Campaign. Three believe that phones have been getting too hard a time recently. Far from bringing the end to humanity, they think they bring people together. Think about it. These pocket rockets help us plan our social life, find love, build relations, run businesses and make memories. They also keep us connected on the go, including 71 destinations worldwide with Three’s Go Roam proposition. As part of the paid article, Three asked me to share my personal experiences on why phones are good. These opinions, stories and images are my own.