5 ways to cure your travel hangover

by Brenda Yun on

Travel hangover (NOUN): the sad feeling you have upon returning home from an inspiring trip, otherwise known as the back-home blues or a hangover without the alcohol

We’ve all had it, and there’s no easy cure for it either. No matter how eager you are to return home from a trip, there’s something about the trip that you’re bound to miss — whether it’s the food, the culture, the sunsets, or the escape from reality. Upon returning home, you find yourself bummed out. Not only that: your friends just don’t understand — and can’t do much to get you out of your back-home funk.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s no place like home, but there’s also nothing like traveling abroad. Usually, the longer you’re away the longer your travel hangover will be. Here are a few ways to get rid of your “illness” a little quicker.

  1. Take time to reflect: Before you get back into the swing of things back home, make sure you reflect on the trip you just took and take note of the things you learned — about yourself and the place you went. If possible, share your reflections with your friends and family, as they will be better able to lift your spirits when you feel sad.
  2. Get and stay busy: Once home, try to get out of the house as much as possible and engage yourself in the real world. Getting and staying busy will force you to spend energy on other things rather than dwell on what you’re missing.
  3. Be grateful: I once sent a letter and care package to a lady I stayed with in Vanuatu and she wrote back with such enormous gratitude that it really lifted my spirits even more than my deed lifted hers. We often forget to say thank you to the people who made our time abroad so memorable and special. All it takes is a little thank you postcard, which is a small thing for the gift you just got in traveling.
  4. Make a difference: Your journey doesn’t have to end when you return to home soil. In fact, there are several ways to continue your trip in a metaphorical sense by saying thank you (#4) or giving back to the people who gave to you. If you don’t have the cash to make a donation to a local NGO, do your part to educate the people you know about what’s going on in the world. Sometimes the smallest gestures have the biggest outcomes.
  5. Plan your next trip: If you’re really feeling bummed out and still dreaming big, who’s to say you can’t begin planning for your next great adventure? Book your next ticket abroad! That way, you’ll have something to look forward to as well as back on.

While there may not be a sure fire way to cure your back-home blues, there are plenty of ways to turn your frown into a smile — and maybe even make others smile in the process. The world is your oyster, but so is your home, so take advantage of having your loved ones beside you again, and take comfort that your next big trip is just around the corner.

Hangover helpers by country

by Grant Martin on

National Geographic has a nifty little chart showing traditional hangover cures by country.

You may have known, for example, that many Americans use tomato juice and eggs to cure the aftermath of a long night out on the town. But did you know that in Romania they use tripe soup? As in cow’s stomach tripe? I don’t know about you, but nothing makes my upset tequila bowels go away better than some cow’s stomach.

Browsing around through the other hangover cures, you can see the stories behind each by hovering your cursor over any of the images. Coffee and green tea, to me, seem to be the only palatable items on the menu. But I guess I’ve always had a pretty weak stomach.

For now though, I’ll leave the fish, pickles and tripe soup go, to the foodies.

Think that’s crazy? Check out our list of the 10 stupidest laws you may encounter abroad!


Big in Japan: How to cure a hangover

by Matthew Firestone on

Did you know that the scientific name for a hangover is veisalgia?

Veisalgia describes the headache, stomach sick, sensitivity to light and sound, weakness and depression that comes the morning after you’ve hit the bottle a bit too hard.

Although scientists might disagree, veisalgia also describes the feeling you get when you roll over and realize you’re sleeping next to someone significantly less attractive than you.

Veisalgia also describes the feeling of waking up naked on the side of the road without your wallet or your keys and only the vaguest recollection of what happened the night before.

(If you’re reading this mom, I swear that happened to someone else!).

In Japanese, the word for hangover is futsukayoi (??????????), which directly translates as ‘two-day drunk.’ Sounds pretty bad, though my hardcore Japanese friends assure me that you haven’t truly partied until you’ve experienced a mitsukayoi (??????????) or ‘three-day drunk.’

Let’s start with what we do know about the commonly experienced but rarely understood phenomenon that is a hangover.

Scientists who spend most of their days drinking vodka shots from beakers and separating the layers of their vomit in centrifuges have identified reasons why humans experience hangovers.

Although I’m convinced that the true cause of hangovers is simply drinking too much, people much smarter than me point to the following culprits: hypoglycemia, dehydration, acetaldehyde intoxication, and vitamin B12 deficiency.

For those of us without PhDs, the previous sentence translates to ‘not enough sugar, not enough water and more alcohol than blood in your veins.’

Of course, most of us are more interested in preventing hangovers than curing them, which is why all of us raging alchies have our own tricks of the trade.

For me, I try to guzzle a few pints glasses of water and slurp down a huge bowl of noodle soup before I pass out in a violent fit of shame and self-loathing. For one of my friends, it‘s the tried and true ‘pull the trigger’ method, which also has the unintended side effect of keeping her super skinny.

As you may have imagined, the Japanese love their drink, which is why the hangover cure market over here in East Asia is a multi-million dollar industry.

With Japanese salarymen prone to long-night binge drinking sessions with their colleagues, it’s only natural that the convenience stores and vending machines here in Japan stock hangover cures.

Although every Japanese drinker has their own favorite brew, I’m partial to リポビタンD (Lipovitamin D), a tasty energy drink chockfull o’ vitamins and minerals that always puts an extra spring in my step.

Truth be told, I have no idea what’s in the stuff (or even if it works), but it’s comforting to know that this little bottle may have the cure for what ails me, even if it only works as a placebo.

Anyway, I guess this blog entry brings about one simple question: what do YOU do to prevent a hangover?

(And yes, I know the answer is simply not to drink, but if you’ve figured out a way not to, please share the secret with the rest of us!)

** Special thanks to CollegeHumor for the amazing picture entitled ‘Ummm you have some stomach in your hair. **

The Worst Places to be Hungover When Traveling

by Martha Edwards on

Most of us have gone a bit overboard on the local beer or spirits when in another country. My worst experience was in Sydney, where my two friends and I found ourselves with a 4L box of wine that we bought for $10 and refused to haul any further on our way up the coast. We had one night to drink it, and it just happened to be Mardi Gras.We finished it all right. But most of my share ended up coming up the way it went in, if you get my drift. Running through the halls of the hostel, trying desperately to get my key card to open the door to the communal bathrooms before spewing up last night’s ill-advised double serving of fries rates up there as one of the worst days of my life. Make that two days.

Here’s what I consider to be the worst places to be hungover. Feel free to add your own in the comments:

  • On a boat off the coast of … well … anywhere: After one tequila-fueled night in Puerto Vallarta, my friends and I had to take a booze cruise or forfeit our deposit. So we went and oh my goodness, I’ve never been so seasick in my life. Actually, I’ve never been seasick period, besides that day. The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns is also notoriously choppy — one girl on a boat trip I went on had to be air-lifted back to shore!
  • In a Tuk Tuk: Bangkok is beautiful but it’s also hot and polluted and I can see why people splurge on cabs — breathing in the exhaust is enough to make anyone hurl, whether they’re already feeling a bit queasy or not.
  • In transit: Not only will exhaustion make you prone to missing your bus/flight/train/ferry but the motion/turbulence/rocking is bound to make you feel a bit ill. Plus, those miniature bathrooms leave something to be desired when you’re feeling nauseous.
  • Locked out of your hostel: Many hostels have lock-out rules during the day so while you want nothing more than to sleep it off, you’ll have to do it elsewhere. I recommend a nearby park if it’s nice out. If it’s not, you might be outta luck.
  • Outside when it’s hot: Laying on the beach with a bunch of bottled water is an okay way to recover, but there’s a fine line between being tolerably hot and being unbearably hot. Insane heat is uncomfortable when you’re feeling your best, so it’s really, really brutal when you’re feeling your worst.

So while we don’t ever really plan to be hungover, next time you’re tempted to say ‘cheers’ a few too many times, look at your surroundings. Must-haves for the hangover are air-conditioning, a decent bed that you can crash in for as long as you want, a supply of water and aspirin, and good friends who will bring you greasy food when you’re too sick to move.

Hangover? A How To…sort of

by Erik Olsen on

I have to admit I am not much of a New Years Eve partier. In a way, I almost dread the coming of a new year. The new year, while heralding in the opportunity for resolutions (most of which will soon be broken) also means I’ve aged yet another year and suggests that time is moving unstoppably fast. (sigh).

BUT, there are those for whom New Years eve is a time to engage in one last night of hard-core excess. The champagne corks fly and gullets are washed with alcohol. For YOU, dear imbibing readers, I offer you not a hangover cure exactly, but a chance to edify yourself into the causes and history of the hangover.

This site, howstuffworks.com, is one of my favorites for all sorts of arcane info on the way the things around us function. From radios to computers to, well, hangovers, it makes an excellent read, especially if your head hurts right now and you just want to sit and veg in front of your computer. Which I am doing anyway, though sans headache.