Whether you are travelling the world, living abroad, or relocating for work, love, or school, you want to ensure that you still keep in contact with those you hold most dear back at home.
In this fast-paced world we now live in, situations and lives are changing quicker than we sometimes realise, and so it is essential that neither you nor your friends and family miss out on any significant changes in your lives.
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And staying in touch can be a challenge, sometimes. While you will perhaps start off messaging every day, this well can soon run dry. It’s no negative representation of your relationship, but eventually you will run out of things to talk about and share as your lives start taking on different routes.
Furthermore, issues such as time difference, schedules, and life, in general, can get in the way. However, if you truly, desperately want to keep in touch, then you need to make an effort. There are so many ways you can do this, that it would be unfortunate to neglect any and all of the possibilities when wanting to keep up to date when you are away.
VIDEO CHAT
If a simple phone call just won’t cut it, then opting for video messaging services such as Skype can give you the chance to feel a little bit more at home away from home. We all need to see the comforts of our living room and see the silly, sweet faces of our pets from time to time, and so chatting over video every once in a while is the perfect solution.
Furthermore, you can get all too easily distracted through phone calls on both ends, and so being able to look each other in the eye will keep your attention and keep you talking for as long as you need. As much as phone calls are the norm, there is something impersonal about it and so being able to see one another will add a further element of excitement to the whole chat.
POSTCARDS
If you want to go old school, then sending postcards from wherever you are in the world is an excellent way to keep in contact with a more personal touch. Handwritten messages are becoming a dying art form and postcards now are used as mere souvenirs to stick in your travel scrapbook.
However, choosing to send a postcard (and hoping it gets there) will be a pleasant surprise for your parents or best friends and lets them know you took time out of your day to write, stick, and send. It will also give them a taste of where you are in the world, with pictures on the front typically displaying local attractions and monuments.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has given us the chance to stay connected and reconnect no matter where we are in the world. However, a mere happy birthday message here and there doesn’t always suffice, and so you need to do your best to find solutions to staying in contact as much as possible.
While Facebook had its rise, despite looking to be moving towards an eventual fall, now, there are other options than simply seeing album updates and clicking Like. Platforms like WhatsApp with its perhaps-better-than-most group chat features allow you to keep up with all your friends and family even if you are just a remote observer.
Furthermore, sites such as Pinterest can help you share new ideas that you think your friends might like, they know you’re always thinking of them.
SNAIL MAIL
Of course, there are times where you don’t necessarily need to keep up to date with everybody back home, but you might still need to keep an eye on bills and other announcements, or even, as happened for many last year, find solutions to voting by proxy.
While some organisations already offer solutions to this, the life of a nomad is fraught with uncertainty, and you never know exactly where you might be. To solve this, you can look into services such as physicaladdress.com, which diverts your mail to another location, scans it, and send you those scans over email, so you never miss a bill. Furthermore, you can also select to have this mail shredded to reduce the risk of sensitive information getting compromised.
UP TO DATE
Keeping up to date with all the goings on back home can be a struggle sometimes. However, with all of the platforms, services, and options available in the modern world, you will be able to find a solution even if you are the most well-travelled and busy of people.
We all miss home at some point, and so taking steps towards ensuring that home seems just a little bit closer will help you to no end on those days where you just wish you had the comforts of your own four walls and friends to rely on should you need it.
Thanks so much for sharing my postcard tips!