UPDATED MAR 2020. I recently was in a conversation about how traveling has affected people’s relationships with friends and family. One person shared their story of feeling isolated when it came to talking to people back home. When your family and friends don’t support your travels it can be a lonely experience and she asked if anyone else had experienced the same. Unfortunately, her experience was all too common. It was sad to see the comments from so many travel lovers. Many had friends and family who either ignored their messages, changed the subject when they sent updates, made no effort to keep in contact, sent snarky comments, didn’t engage on any social media updates, or a combination of all of these. How sad is it that when achieving something that excites and fulfills you, such as your travels, can sometimes come at the expense of your close relationships. Here are my thoughts on what to do if this happens to you.
What To Do When Your Family And Friends Don’t Support Your Travels
It can be lonely
I too have experienced the same.
Many times I have sent updates to family and friends and heard crickets. Or had the subject changed. I’ve had the snarky comments and the no comments (which is a comment in itself).
I’ve begged for support from family and friends in trying to grow this blog and the majority of support here and on things like Instagram comes from strangers on the Internet. People who I have never met (but would love to one day – maybe we should arrange a group meet up or something!)
If I am honest, all of this was pretty hurtful in the beginning.
I wondered what was going wrong. Why weren’t people happy for me to be happy? Why were they so silent if I talked about travel but talkative if I talked about my dog?
When I saw the comments about others experiencing the same, I breathed a sigh of relief at first. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. But I quickly felt sad that it was such a common experience.
Loneliness is a horrible type of suffering.
When you can’t share things that make you happy with your family and friends, it can be incredibly isolating.
Why is it so hard to be happy for one another?
I get that I have a blog so I update a lot through my social media channels which could be annoying for my friends and family, but many of the people commenting were people that just took a couple of trips a year or even a one-off 6-month travel break.
The good thing is, success and happy times will show you who your true family and friends are.
Just as much as hard times will.
In a way, the isolating experience of chasing my own travel goals was beneficial because it has brought me closer to my true friends.
The friends who look at me as just boring old me, not through envious eyes as if our friendship is a competition. And the friends who share their life with me too in the Snapchats and messages that I love to receive.
How do you cope when home becomes lonely?
I’m writing this post with some suggestions on things you can do if you are experiencing a similar issue with your own family and friend network.
I hate the type of posts that don’t focus on making any changes and look outside to blame or fix others.
I’m all about focusing on working on yourself for any problems you have. It’s the only thing in your control after all.
So here are some tips which I hope can help you with this tricky and awkward problem.
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What to do when your family and friends don’t support your travels
1. Check yourself
It’s one thing to complain that no-one is supporting you, but I think the first step is to check your own actions.
Are you making an effort to remain in contact and be supportive of your friend’s achievements – no matter what they are?
Do you make an effort to keep in contact – whether that is commenting on their updates, FaceTiming or sending messages to ask for an update?
Are you a cheerleader and shoulder of support for them?
If the answers are no, then it’s no surprise that no-one is there for you.
Your starting point should be to be a better friend first.
2. Change your expectations
If your friends or family have proven to you through their actions that they’re not supportive or interested in your travels – accept it.
Much of the disappointment we face is wanting someone to be something that they’ve already shown that they aren’t. In the end this can only lead to you to disappointment.
Who are you to change people just so you feel better anyway?
Accept people for who they are and accept situations for what they are. Don’t expect either to change.
This is a little easier with friends since many times the approval from family is more important.
But, at the end of the day, you have to let people be who they are and don’t keep expecting them to be different.
3. Don’t be spammy
Straight up, nobody likes a spammer no matter what the subject is.
I don’t mind what people are passionate about but if it’s multiple updates a day about the same thing, then it’s overkill.
We get it, Cheryl, you love your baby but the face is the same in every photo and let’s face it babies only do like three things so give us a break!
If you’re posting updates non-stop about your travels and constantly messaging people photos, that’s just plain annoying and is like rubbing it in people’s faces.
We get it. You’re traveling.
Maybe slow down a bit to avoid spamming or boring people.
4. Talk about it
Have you talked to your friends or family about how their lack of support makes you feel?
They may be so busy with their own daily life (you know how it feels when you have a million things to do in the day), or even at times lost in their fear, jealousy or insecurities, that they don’t realize that they’re actions are leaving you feeling isolated.
By the same token, you sending photos and updates may be really annoying to them. How would you know if there is no conversation about it?
The issues might just stem from a lack of communication.
If you care about friendships and relationships with family members, at least give talking about it a chance.
5. It’s not all about you
I think one important thing to remember is that it’s not all about you.
People simply have other things going on with their lives.
It might not be that your family and friends don’t support your travels, they may just be busy.
Maybe they have mentally responded to your message but forgot to actually reply. Sometimes a time difference means you get messages at inconvenient times.
They may also just not be interested in traveling.
It might be an exciting update for you, but to your friends or family who don’t have any interest in travel, it’s like ‘oh cool it’s just so and so going to a new place again.’
If they don’t respond it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t incredibly happy and excited for you – they might just relate to it as much.
Be fair and give people a break. We all have a lot going on in our lives and not enough time in the day.
6. Social media cleanse
Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate who you want to make an effort to keep in your life and do a little social media cleanse.
I don’t think this is the ultimate fix because just cutting people out doesn’t ever fix problems within you.
I’d say start with working on yourself first, talk about the issues, and develop good relationships before just cutting people out.
But, if it helps, maybe do a social media cleanse.
Most people on our feeds are just lurking anyway and if you’re not making an effort to be part of each other’s lives, then clicking delete or unfollow can leave you more room to focus on the people who are making an effort.
Focusing on quality over quantity is always a good idea in my book.
7. Share your trips with me
Duh!
I’m always down to talk travel so tell me about your trips!
I hope this post helps you if you have been feeling lonely or isolated.
Remember that you’re not alone. Also, remember to support your family and friends no matter what they are doing.
Use this experience to make sure your others don’t feel the same isolation you have.
Other travel reflections you might enjoy
5 Friends You Need In Your Life (And 5 You Definitely Don’t)
On The Importance Of Facing Challenges In This Comfortable World
If you found this useful, return the favor by sharing it or following me on Instagram!
I think that most people care about their traveling friends and family but they just don’t advertise the fact on social media.
A lot of people also worry about their ‘travelers ‘, especially the solo ones. And one way to deal with the worry is to put your head in the sand emu like and not be involved and that way nothing bad will happen.
To all the travelers out there, have fun and stay safe.
The old head in the sand trick, I feel like that’s probably the case for a lot of people. It’s tough when there’s such a communication breakdown like that.
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