19 Homesick quotes; these are for the traveler on the move who’s missing home, and for my general readers.
I handpicked the best missing home quotes with a picture and added an interpretation to each, to help you understand the meaning of each.
The quotes are here to help you on your journey, in tough times, when you feel doubtful and nostalgia in your heart.
Table of Contents
So, you like Travel Quotes? Get inspired!
1. I was once young…
I was once young. I was traveling alone, and lost my way; I thought myself rich when I met another: Man is the Joy of man.
Hávamál
Sometimes when we travel the world, we might feel lonely, shame and also homesick, missing our family and friends back home.
The urge to do the wrong move and break up the trip is immense!
Yet, in these moments, we are glad to come across someone whom we can relate to, especially when we are far from home. Friendly smiles and a relatable human being can bring about a beautiful emotion, and this in turn may conquer your homesickness.
The Hávamál is a collection of Icelandic Poems, and those traveling viking sure knew a thing or two of feeling lonely.
2. Although traveling as a guest is fun, but not as good as to come back home sooner.
Poem Meng Jiao
Yes, journeys can come to an end too and when that happens, it is ok. You can come back to your home base, all excited to be back in your 4 walls.
We always feel excited to be back home after a trip, no matter if it was a short or long one because home is home after all.
You have all your usual things there and your home helps you to feel rooted again.
3. A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
Quote by George Moore
We go out for adventures because we need to get out there for whichever reason. Traveling makes us want to explore the world, and we rightfully do that.
Yet, if we go out there to looking for something specific, we will most probably travel until we get tired traveling and when we are home, we finally find what we were looking for: Peace and satisfaction in our mind.
All these feeling may be temporarily, yet at least for the time being after having seen something and been abroad, you will feel a bit more at ease in your mind. Ultimately, this is the right road taken.
4. Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Setting out on a trip or great adventure, requires that your state of mind is stable and that you feel good about going on such a trip.
Bring your beautiful emotions along with you when you travel, your journey will turn out so much more meaningful and better.
A smile can be so compelling and people will react in kind towards you. As a stranger in another land, it makes sense to make friends with locals.
So, whenever you feel homesick and you just can’t go home yet, think about these words and try to make the best of your situation.
5. The whole object of travel…
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot in one’s own country as a foreign land.
G.K. Chesterton
Years ago I came home after an extended trip, and it all seemed surreal, kind of different.
I was so used to seeing other places, their customs, the people, and everything about these places, that I briefly forgot how home felt like.
When you go to new places, you start to see why people live there the way they do. Suddenly, everything starts to make sense, your country won’t look that perfect anymore.
You get to come home as a foreigner in your land, sharing ideas and things that you have learned in other places with your people at home. This is truly a priceless perspective.
6. Alles nahe werd fern ~ All that is near becomes far.
Quote by Goethe
The more you move away from your home place, the farther away you get from it, physically and emotionally.
New places can be daunting, and it’s understandable if you feel homesick at first. You had other expectations, things didn’t turn out as planned.
Yet, remember that you are not only physically away from your home, but that you should give the new place a chance to be emotionally present there now.
Just give the place and yourself some time, and you will soon feel better. Go out and explore these beautiful places that you came to see in the first place, and then circle back and see if you still feel the same way.
7. Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.
Quote by Gustave Flaubert
It truly is an eye-opener, when you realize that the world is much bigger than you initially imagined.
I understand that this can be frightening as well because it breaks your beliefs and what you thought you knew all this while about the world. It’s also ok to feel this way.
Just know that you are not alone, and feeling modest is a good thing. If you feel homesick, just remember that this is just the start of your journey and that you need to do this for yourself!
8. I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land.
Quote by Seneca
I believe that I can live almost anywhere in the world and I will be able to melt into the local environment because I respect these places and see beauty in them.
I didn’t always feel that wayin fact, I was so scared the first time I traveled alone abroad. Everything was so daunting!
Yet, I got over my fears and took it all to the next level. Today I can be proud of my travel achievements and I call the world my home.
You can also walk this way, a step at a time.
9. Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.
Quote by Henry David Thoreau
Those most desperate moment, yes, those horrible, doubt-filled hours, are the ones that got me where I’m today.
The process of going through though times, especially when we are on a longer journey abroad, can be called therapeutic in one way or the other.
You have to deal yourself with that situation. Perhaps you make a mistake, and it’s ok if you did, but once you get out of this difficult moment, you will feel better about yourself.
Your self-respect will increase, and you will feel a sense of accomplishment.
I met a German lady years ago in India. She had just split from a long-term relationship, and she felt lost. On one of her first days, she felt awful and homesick. She pulled through and the experiences in the next 3 months made her stronger.
Her trip was a success and she said on her last day that she was glad that she had gone through all this because now she knew who she was and what she wanted in life. She happily lives now in Germany with 2 kids.
10. A wise traveler never despises his own country.
Quote by Carlo Goldoni or William Hazlitt
My wife once mentioned, that she felt embarrassed about her country in her younger years.
She traveled and saw places, people and things and this helped her to understand and value her country more.
While this may sounds like the opposite of homesickness, it is perhaps a form of such.
She says, that she missed home, but unresolved issues made her feel the way she did. Travel helped her to see it all with new eyes and thus the old became a “new home”, where she finally felt real comfort and home.
11. He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.
Chinese proverb
Things change when you are out and about discovering the world. The whole world is always moving and while you travel, you absorb even more knowledge than when you are in one place in your hometown.
So, when you come back home after a prolonged time, know that nothing will be as it was. Small and big things will have happened and that’s ok.
While you feel briefly homesick, remember this and understand that we all have to move forward, instead of lingering in the past.
You deserve to grow and see more than just a small corner in this world.
12. The journey itself is my home.
Quote by Matsuo Basho
Wherever you are in this world, traveling and wandering about, know, that your home is where you are.
Take your things and make a new place feel home for those few days or weeks that you live there. This ritual will make you feel more rooted and less lost.
You can decide to stay in a place for a longer period too. I have also done that in the past whenever I felt like it was too early to move on. The ache of homesickness will be less once you find a rhythm which works for yourself.
13. We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.
Quote by John Lubbock
For those of us who don’t get to travel out there enough.
It’s the opposite of homesickness, but I thought I would throw this in here to remind you of another perspective.
Remember those days when we were all quarantined, and we couldn’t get out? Yes, we had the option to google places or look them up on TikTok, but we still longed to go to other places, right?
Perhaps this thought will make you feel a tiny bit better and you won’t feel that homesick anymore.
14. I pack my trunk,…
I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Can you relate to the following? You packed your things, got a ticket to a cool destination, you are excited to be there but feel a bit hollow in your heart, and maybe you expected a colorful 100 percent new start.
You can’t run away from yourself, and a fresh new destination won’t change things as they have been.
Not only that, but you will need time to find your role and purpose. Just go with the flow. If you need to travel 2 weeks to find it, do it. If you take 3 months, do it. If it’s a year, just do it. You are, you and not someone else. Take your time to figure out yourself.
15. Traveling in the company of those we love is home in motion.
Quote by Leigh Hunt
Traveling can be at times more fulfilling when we travel with people we like or love. It also greatly reduces homesickness.
Good company results in good people, having fun in a magical place with good music and good food (yep, the good multiplies).
Out of personal experience, I can say that the happiest moments of my life on a trip have been in the company of my wife.
16. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Quote by Leo Tolstoy
The unknown is a scary place. It’s so scary that we have that irrepressible desire to change it so that we can digest it better. So, we go out and try to change the world, convince people to embrace our culture.
You know the guy who couldn’t stop talking about how Christmas was so much more exciting in America than in Peru, while on a trip there? And then he goes about to play Santa Claus for a day, ignoring local customs.
Maybe he is feeling homesick and that’s why he is doing all that.
Yet, that guy could have tried to hang out with some locals, and they would have included him in a traditional Christmas celebration. That night could have been a memorable moment.
While this may sound like a harmless thing, it isn’t fair to yourself and the locals when you miss a chance to be part of something better. Your bubble isn’t where you want to be when you travel.
Of course, it’s ok to share customs, stories, and things with people in other countries, but there is a fine line, and you don’t want to over step your welcome.
17. No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel…
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
Quote by Lin Yutang
This quote speaks the truth from my heart.
The part where you come home, clean up yourself and go to bed, that’s a glorious moment! The bed is the heart of the home!
Occasionally we miss home while we are on a long journey, when things are less than comfortable. But guess what? At some point, you will be able to enjoy this perfect bed and pillow of yours once again.
Once you realize that, you will give your 100% on this trip.
18. There is no peace more delightful than one’s own fireplace.
Quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero
Cicero was right, the warmth of a home is indeed precious!
Perhaps you have reached a point in your journey where it’s time to go home.
Well, that quote is for you.
Now your time has come to end this trip and to go home, guilt-free.
Rest at home and look out for peace.
19. Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.
Quote by Charles Dickens
The more you travel, the more you miss and appreciate what you call home. It’s normal to feel that way.
Great possibilities and friendly paths will come your way, but remember that there will always be a place somewhere which you can call home. This might be your native soil or a place that you learned to love at some point in your life.
If you, currently, don’t have a home, create one in a place where you feel things are right. If you need a new home, travel to find for what you are looking for and settle there to make it your base for more life adventures.
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What do you think, how do you interpret these quotes? Please let us know your thought in the comment section.
