not only after a big trip my mood always gets worse after even one day trips when returning home

Well One sure cure is have kids! After travelling I worked throughout Africa and argentina, and just couldn't do an office job. Going to Europe or America bored me; too crowded, too many rules, tame house cat land. I had to get away. When kids came I was happy to be with them. Now I do 1 long solo trip per year and one shorter one. My son is now old enough to come with. Once he turns 18 well then, maybe we go across Russia or something on 2 bikes.

Sorry I had to...

__________________
Alaska 2014: Hotel Budget ZeroXmas in Death Valley, New Year in Urique

Well, I´m not writing frequently, but I´m travellng for 30 Years+, in different ways.
What I learned from travelling and coming back, was that I had to adapt to the situation.
After my first travel of 6 months to India etc. I didn´t accept the new situation, and going with the flow I ended up working at my aunts business, marring (a wonderful wife for more than 30 years), and having a 26 years old daughter), sounds like I changed pace, but no...
I went all over Europe, USA and Asia, for months, without my wife (she let me go and visits me i.e. in Japan during her holidays).
And the only cure to the depression after returning was to learn how to live different lifes and switch very quick.
Now I work 400+ km away from home, and it´s like changing lives on a weekly basis. My two lives are so different from each other as possible. I couldn´t deal with that if I couldn´t switch in an instant.
And the key was for me to be aware that I´m still the same person!

And I agree that once infected it becomes your fate to travel.
But it´s easy for me right now, as I´m leaving for a month riding in Marocco in about 2 weeks, and in april 16 starting for a ride to Japan and back.
I´ll report after my return in 2017

dont cry that its over,but smile at that it happened.
this applies to much.

good luck
kp

I am happily married, over 65 and Ive been home from a trip to Ushuaia for over 2 years, since then after having done multiple rides across the US and South America I wish I was back on the road long term. I want to be back down in Central America, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Argentine, Chile ,anywhere!. Adventure never seems to have left me.

Is there a reason you're not going?

Aside, Adventure doesn't have to be in a far away country suffering heat/cold and eating weird stuff. You can find new and fun stuff not far from home usually. Maybe not the same but is will sooth the adventure lacking heart

Take care!

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I was sad enough that I kept traveling. I have been on the road for 7 years so far. I have been about 150,000 miles in 60+ countries in Latin America (4 times), Europe, and Africa where I had to leave my wrecked DR650 after a head-on collision in Ghana. The only good news to my (latest) crash in Ghana was that the idiot driver was arrested and my DR destroyed his car as my head trashed the windshield.
As a retiree on a Social Security pension (at least until the Republicans take it away) I stay with friends, Couchsurf, and stay in cheap hostels. I save enough to usually fly back annually to see family.
What's next? I have some interest in riding around OZ, and maybe seeing a few parts of SE Asia that I have missed (Bhutan, Myanmar, Vietnam, & Laos again). Since I am older now, at 69, I will probably stick to Latin America.

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__________________
motomon at pobox dot com
Have returned to Latin America ... again in 2020.

Inspiring .... come to India

You can get a bike on hire for peanuts n travel cheaply in this most amazing beautiful country side.

I've not did a big tour as such yet but I've been through depression, I had about three months of it can't say why it started and I can't say why for sure it went, but I can say what helped me was I gave up my time for free to coach a bunch of young kids football team that were getting beat by cricket scores every week to winning team, it gave me that well being knowing that I was Helping people in this case u10's.
As you say you have that spare time then that's something to think about.

A good suggestion Lowrider

Hell yeah. I know exactly what you mean.. but re-entering the corporate world I'm finding having 4 T shirts, and a pair of zip-offs to be somewhat limiting..

Depressed?
The reason you're depressed is that you have told yourself all this time that you're free until {enter estimated time at destination} . Now that you've past this milestone you have reached the "until" and your mind perceives you as trapped because it can't fix in the past.

To fix it, set a date, any date, just as long as it is at least two months ahead, and tell yourself daily, hourly, minute by minute, just like you did for the last ride, how you're going to be free for a time (say a weekend). Then rinse, lather repeat. Build the plans further away.

Why two months? You have to say that to yourself long enough for it to become the habit that will replace the one you have now - because the one you have now has a destination date in your past,

And the last thing about depression - you don't have to fix the depression today, you do have to set a goal, set a time, and go and do it. Like a single item checklist. Tick it off, and you'll feel light years better. Tomorrow you put two items on that list. Tick two items off, and you'll find your psyche letting in twice as much light.

Make the initial goals tiny and make them out the house. eg 1. get a coffee for MrsX, tick.

Go to the movies more. The tour you did is being filed by your subconscious into the same area these let you into. Escape.

I am glad i am not alone in this, i also been on the road, and out traveling for extended periods of time on motorcycles, semi trucks on two continents, and just whatever i could get my hands on old cars, and even small boats when i was younger.
I've met so many great people along the way.

Ever since i came back,what i regard to as home some four years ago, i got really depressed, relations never worked out, i even got fired one time for fixing a technical problem on my own, because this was not allowed within company rules, the fact that i saved my employer half a million, by taking action, the way i did was ignored, so i even got up to i point i really didn't trust myselves into doing anything, properly, not even replacing an, innertube on a bycicle .

The loyalty i've experienced out on the road just isn't there.

I have some friends from the militairy that experience the same.

Now i find it hard to imagine, that i used to repair my own semi tractor in minus 40, somewhere in Canada the US or Europe,or completely rewire the the smoked up electric cables on my Tenere, some where in New Foundland.

Or so much other stuff i can look back at, now that i am reprogrammed again, for normal live as i look at this myself.

There's no one to share your story's with i find which makes normal life so difficult, so now i've stuffed all my belongings into storage and getting ready to be out traveling again, on a motorcycle, my energy, self confidence, and just joy of getting up is gradually coming back.
So not sure, if this is just me, or more people that think like me, if a normal or regarded to as a normal life, people dedicating themselves to just consumerism is really the way to go.

Or should the majority like us all be out there, like nomads, helping each other and others out, when help is needed,and staying away from swamping ourself in materialism as much as we can?

I'm glad i'm not the only one suffering from this, Aloha!

Well said!

Even after the last year in hospitals having four operations due to a bike crash, I can't wait to be on the road again. I leave this week for Latin America and have already agreed to buy another motorbike.

__________________
motomon at pobox dot com
Have returned to Latin America ... again in 2020.