Read all the way to the end for information about the free gift!

Are you suffering from travel fatigue?

Or maybe you are experiencing the Ugly Side of Travel?

Not sure what that is? Well let me explain…

Back in 2011 I went on my first year long stint abroad. It wasn’t my first time traveling alone for work (volunteering here was) but it was, at the time, the longest I would spend in a new country. After returning from Belize my body and heart wanted to continue exploring but my mind and logic wanted me to get a job. So for several month I applied with various companies to try and land my “first professional full-time job” with a company.

Five months later I landed a job with a top research university in my home state of Connecticut. I was still wavering between going to medical school or doing an MPH so the new position as a research assistant would help me figure it all out. Or so I thought. After that position ended I landed another back in Boston at a cancer research institute and stayed there for almost two years. During that time I also started my graduate studies. The whole time I longed to get back out in the world and start doing field work abroad again. So after graduate school I tried to land a job with an international NGO or agencies with international positions. USAID was one of my top choices but little did I know then, how difficult it would be to get hired from the outside.

I started to get burned out from my job search and continuing to quiet the noise to set off on another travel journey. Eventually though I caved in and started a position teaching abroad in South Korea.

After a year in South Korea came another stint in Spain (for a school year) then off into the Peace Corps for two years.

The problem with all this long term traveling is that I never really invested in time to decompress from all of the new experiences. I didn’t really know then, what I know now, that giving yourself time to reflect on the journey and how you will internalize it is really important.

Case in point: Viet Nam. That was a very difficult experience but I never talked about it…with anyone. I hinted here and there on the blog and in Youtube videos but never really spilled the tea so to speak. I just shoved it under the rug (let’s use the made of phrase of “ruggin it” from now on!) out of plain sight.

And honestly family and friends that I tried to explain the situation to, just didn’t get it!

But not fully dealing with Vietnam caused me to realized when I was, “ruggin it”, in Spain and Botswana. It was time to get my head checked. So I started to create tangible ways to make the experience more worthwhile. After all what’s the sense in living out the dream of working in a foreign country if you are unhappy?

By creating a series of self care activities to following when traveling, working, or living abroad just gets to be too much, I was able to:

Learn how to deal with racism/racist situations and turn them into teaching moments
Stay calm and collected when dealing with customer service reps or bank tellers
Unwind after working with unruly counterparts or students (hehe)
Create digital outlets and opportunities to learn new crafts
Beat jet lag after serval hours of trans atlantic travel
Use fitness and nutrition to boost energy and morale
Teach others how to tell their travel story to strangers, family, and friends

So how exactly did I manage to do all of this?

With The Head Check! These self care methods have been so profound that I created this guidebook to share with everyone exactly how to do the same. The book is over 50 pages and details the different phases one might experience from travel fatigue and a plan of action in solving them.

Let’s take a look at the main section of the guidebook.

Section 1: The Pulse