16 Ways to cope with Post (Disney) travel Depression

Cinderella's Castle at Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World

It seems to be an almost certainty, the better the holiday, the worse the post travel depression when you return home. Actually, this is a scientific fact – Post travel depression is real. You lament being back at home, you keep thinking how great your last holiday was, you pour over past photos and dearly wish you were still there living the dream. 

It makes sense. On holiday your body is burning with adrenalin, you are having fun, eating great food (or at least not cooking it!), enjoying new experiences, sleeping in, relaxing and your worries are far away. And then - you return back to the real world and your normal existence and your same old routine (which cannot possibly match the thrilling heights of a wonderful trip away).

*Disclaimer: If you are suffering severe Depression symptoms please see your Doctor

We returned in April from a magical trip to Hong Kong and Japan. Amongst other things we visited Disneyland’s in both countries, and spent some quality time exploring both countries – basically we had the time of our lives. Returning from holiday I had the worst Disney and travel blues – as we don’t have any foreseeable future trips planned due to other life commitments. When we returned from our holiday, I did my usual photobooks and blog postings, but the thought of not going anywhere for a long time I found quite depressing. 

The Cure

The cure for Post travel depression is to begin planning another holiday. This is guaranteed to work. Even if your follow up trip is a few years away, the actual anticipation and the planning does help you get over the post travel blues. Also, interestingly and scientifically, anticipating a holiday is just as good as going on one! ¹ 

In fact, with so much construction going on in Disney parks and Universal Studios around the world at present - it might not be such a bad thing to delay travelling there the next few years as these new attractions are being built and waiting for opening day/year crowds to decrease. Construction is effecting every single theme park worldwide right now. Some fantastic new rides and attractions are being built and expansions are planned in most of the parks.

But what if you cannot for some reason go on a holiday in the next few years? What can you do? How can you cope with the anticipation of a long wait until the next Disney trip? This blog is for you!

Depression is caused by dwelling in the past. The ‘plan another holiday’ works by putting you firmly in the present and future. The tips below get you out of the ‘past funk’, and into enjoying and having fun in the here and now!

These are my 5 Tips to cope with Post Disney travel Depression.

1. Cook up your favourite treats and foods from your travels

This has been fun. I’ve been cooking some Disney treats for me and my family. You feel like you are doing something Disney-ish and the results are really cool. I baked some Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse Cupcakes! Their faces were so cute I really didn’t want to add icing to cover their faces. Baking is quite distracting and fun to do (and of course you get to eat it afterwards too). I bought the cupcake molds from the Daiso store (more on this store later!).

The Daiso store has other items too – like Disney Pancake shapes, bento box rice Shapes, chocolate molds and Disney ice block molds. All for around $2.80 AUD.

What you can buy at Daiso

There are also Disney Park restaurant recipes online. Just google! Want to make the “Grey-stuff” icing that is famous from the Be Our Guest restaurant in the Magic Kingdom? You can find it online and serve it up to your friends and family for dessert!

After our trip to Hong Kong, I went on a mission to recreate the yummy Chicken and Mushroom buns that I loved over there. Recreating your favourite meals from overseas countries does help with Post travel depression. If you can’t physically be there – at least you can eat like you are!

2. Indulge in some travel/Disney movies

One of the things I like to indulge in are movies from an area I’ve just been to. I do like watching the movies ‘The Hangover’ and ‘What happens in Vegas’ just to see all the fun themed hotels in Vegas and think hey I’ve been there! The movie ‘Lost in Translation’ set in Japan, brings back all my awe and amazement of Japan.

Similarly, if I’m missing Disneyland – I can watch one of my Disney favourites again or a Disney remake (loved the live action movie Aladdin!). The scenery in the Aladdin 2019 remake reminded me so much of Tokyo DisneySea - particularly on the big screen I felt like I was literally back in that park with all that Arabian scenery. Movies have the power to transport you places! Watching a good movie can be just as good as actually being there. Really….

Some of the Disney parks have introduced Marvel rides. Until a few months ago I had not seen any of these movies – and there are like 22 movies! So, one of my goals has been to try and see each one (note Marvel was bought by Disney recently and is just getting bigger as a franchise) so next time we visit a Disney park, I will know a bit more about the actual movie when going on the ride! (Here’s looking at you Hong Kong Disneyland with Marvel Land coming up in the next few years!).

3. Follow some travellers on YouTube

Subscribe to some Disney travellers on YouTube and watch the latest rides on there in the comfort of your own home (with zero wait times and no tired family members or scorching heat or drenching rain). Some Youtubers are a bit risky with their filming of the rides – but you do get all the benefits of seeing what the ride is actually like without risking your own camera!

Another thing you can do is watch the Disney planning videos online https://www.disneyplanning.com/?sourcecode=20696 and see what is coming soon to the parks. These videos often show the best bits of the parks. We watched these all the time in the lead up to our first Disney trip – and then watched them many times after our trip as it was a good ‘summary’. You can also view other parks around the world on these videos too for your next big trip.

4. Join some Facebook groups that help travellers

Once you’ve been on a Disney holiday, you have so much information and what to do with it? Helping fellow travellers on Facebook gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I know in my own trip planning how helpful Facebook travel groups were. Tripadvisor is another site. Leave reviews - particularly of obscure places you’ve visited – as these often need reviews and tips more than most. Everyone reviews Disneyland – but choose a particular restaurant inside Disneyland.

5. Eat at a well themed restaurant at home of your favourite country

I recently ate at the Ginza Miyako Japanese Restaurant in Adelaide. It was well themed, a bright red Kimono was on display, bamboo, tatami floors, shoes off, gold paintings, traditional Japanese food and more. It was all smiles from me as it reminded me so much of our recent trip to Japan! It was also reasonably priced too! Theming of a restaurant done well makes you feel like you are ‘somewhere else on holiday’.

Ginza Miyako Japanese Restaurant in Adelaide

6. Explore your own city like you do as a traveller

With our love of travel, we often neglect our own city and the cool and unique things to be found there. I love the greenery in Japan, so in my own city I have planned a day trip to the waterfall in Morialta Conservation Park I greatly enjoyed our park walks overseas, so am planning on doing more of these back in my own hometown.

I love the water too – and we live near the beach – so I also plan to spend a lot more time near the beach this Summer! Being in the water always makes me feel like I’m on holiday.

The beach near where I live, Brighton Beach, Adelaide Australia

We attended the Aladdin Broadway Musical in June this year in our hometown and it was amazing. A little bit of Disney magic that doesn’t involve a plane trip away! Stage shows are a lot of fun and I do recommend – particularly if they are Disney themed!

We attended the Aladdin Musical in Adelaide

Planning these little day trips/shows give the brain something to look forward to. A ‘little holiday’, even if its for just one day. At least you get the comfort of your old pillow….

7. Visit a Daiso store

As mentioned previously- these are cheap $2.80 shops that have sprouted up everywhere in Australia recently and are a company based in Japan. They seem to have a lot of cheap Disney merchandise, but also a lot of other fun Japanese food and homewares that are not only cheap but actually of very good quality! (well, it's Japan!). If you were addicted to Peach Juice in Japan – you can find it in Daiso!

Daiso Store

8. Find a new obsession to tie you over until your next trip – that is useful for your next trip!

Learn a language (Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, French = World Disney Parks!) that might come in handy for your next trip. Not only is it keeping you busy – but you are also doing something useful for your ‘far off’ future trip. I would recommend downloading a language App on your phone. I learned Hiragana from Memory Hint App on Android and do recommend. I was able to apply my knowledge of Hiragana at the Train stops in Japan! (note: there were bilingual signs present – but it was fun to actually be able to read the Japanese).

9. Start a blog about your travels!

This kind of helps decompress your holiday a bit, and was kind of the reason I started my blog initially. You get to go into more detail about your holiday experiences and its easy to share your photos on there. I use Blogger.com as a platform – its free and easy to use. You can also make it private too and manipulate the settings if you only wish to share it with family and friends and not the entire world.

10. Follow Hashtags on Instagram of dream destinations

Is it a good idea to actively seek out your dream destinations on the web or does it make you more miserable? Yes I do think it helps to alleviate Post Travel depression. It makes you smile and reminisce and think about ‘next time’ I’m going to get a photo from that angle or eat there or whatever. It’s kind of about ‘next time’ and future thinking. 

However, I have made a point of avoiding travel magazines and ‘online deal sites’ for the time being. No point torturing yourself there is a bargain airfare to the U.S happening right now if you can’t actually go!

But fantasy images of exotic ‘bucket list’ locations seems to offer more good than bad for me!

11. Start a Pinterest board for your upcoming ‘next trip’ that might be miles away

It might be years away, but ‘advance planning is good for you’ as the literature says, so why not start a photo board of all your prospective plans? It’s a good and easy way to save travel blogs that are packed full of information. Pinterest is easy to start up –you can have multiple boards (up to 500!) and you can also make them all private if you wish.

The Pinterest board works as a ‘Visualisation’ of what you want and how you want to feel. There are some who say if you project visually enough of that out there into the universe, then it will come back to you somehow. Anyway, its worth a try! In any case it keeps your information from blogs/photos etc in one tidy place.

Note - Athletes use visualisation in training to prepare for being in the moment when they are ‘there’ at the beginning of a race, and I think the same principals apply to travel planning too. More information can be found here:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/flourish/200912/seeing-is-believing-the-power-visualization

My Pinterest page

12. Take another look at your backyard

Is there a way you can make your backyard more like your favourite travel destination? I started many years ago in trying to turn a Rosemary bush in our backyard into some ‘Mickey Ears’. I was inspired a lot by the topiary inside Disneyland which turned simple trees into incredible Disney characters– thinking oh I can do that!! Well, its taken about 5 years and it still looks like this:

A hidden Mickey? My Rosemary bush

I have planted several Hibiscus trees as I love the tropics and wanted my garden to look like a tropical wonderland. When the trees are all flowering, it certainly does. Hibiscus flowers with their gorgeous colours make me smile and think of my trip to Hawaii and other tropical destinations.

My Hibiscus plants growing in the backyard

You could also decorate your backyard with some artworks, water features and trees native to your dream vacation spot. Things that make you smile.

13. Play your favourite tunes from your trip

I actually have a playlist of ‘Orlando trip songs’. These were the songs our hotel resort played on a ‘revolving play list loop’ by the Pool, over and over again. I think it was about 6 songs the Disney resort played - and every time I hear them on the radio now – it reminds me instantly of my holiday. Every holiday I have – I tend to have a few songs that remind me of that time and that holiday. Singing is enjoyable too and gets you out of your post travel funk.

Alternatively, why not learn to play a song on a musical instrument from your trip? You get the double joy of learning to play the song and hearing the music. I play the Ukulele which is a very easy instrument to play – I have turned my hand at some Disney songs with mixed success! 

14. Create some Disney Artwork
A while ago I stumbled on how to make these Disney glass domes. Actually, they can be of any picture really -you just need a black silhouette image. They are fun to make and can be a nice reminder of your Disney holidays. Instructions are here.

Disney Glass Domes are super easy to make

15. Get lost in a good adventure travel book
Similar to movies, there is nothing quite like a good book to transport you to another place. Did you know that Disney has alternative and expanded novels of its stories? Adventure and Non-fiction travel books can also be good to fill the senses with new information, pictures, ideas and more. Someone once told me to always find 'coffee table' books that 'inspire' you to lift your mood.

Disney Books

16. Open a Savings account (or similar) and just start saving for that next trip

Although your next trip may be years away due to your circumstances, there is no reason why you cannot start a savings account to get there anyways. Unfortunately bank interest everywhere in the world is extremely low, but you get the idea - put some money aside. I have a post on this here: MoneySaving Tips and how you can save for a trip to Disneyland

 

My first trip overseas I was 22 years old. It actually took me 4 years to save the money and I opened the bank account with just $2. I was studying at Uni and working part time. Any holiday is doable, but may take time to accumulate the funds. Besides, the research says just planning a holiday (even years ahead) will make you happier! Go for it! I hope  you enjoyed reading this blog post. 

I would love to hear any comments from you - what are your tips coping with post travel depression?

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Until next week,

KJ

Reference:
1. Nawijn,J., Marchand, M.A., Veenhoven, R. et al. Applied Research Quality Life (2010)5: 35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-009-9091-9




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