‘I’ve gotten good at leaving. The coming back still gets me’: IIT-Kanpur graduate on the hidden side of travel after returning from Sri Lanka

Travelling is often portrayed as a series of exciting departures, new places and unforgettable experiences. But what happens when the trip ends and everyday life begins again? IIT-Kanpur graduate Kanak Agrawal recently opened up about the emotional confusion that followed her return from Sri Lanka. She described feeling “completely disoriented” a week after coming home, highlighting a lesser-discussed part of travel: the strange, unsettled period of adjusting to ordinary life after an extraordinary experience.

The part of travel nobody talks about

IIT-Kanpur graduate Kanak Agrawal took to social media and shared her experience after returning from Sri Lanka. While travel is often celebrated for the excitement of leaving, discovering new places and meeting people, she said the return deserves just as much attention. According to Agrawal, the days after coming home can feel “dull and dislocated” after a beautiful experience ends. She described the feeling as not exactly sadness, but being “scrambled” as she tried to become present in her everyday life while still carrying the emotions of her recent adventure.

‘The coming back still gets me’

Agrawal said this was not her first experience of feeling this way. She has spent five years “leaving, arriving, and leaving again”, yet she admitted that she still has not figured out how to properly process one adventure before moving on to the next. She said, “I’ve gotten good at the leaving. The coming back still gets me every time.”


The observation captures an often-overlooked side of frequent travel. The excitement of departure can be easier to embrace than the emotional adjustment that follows when travellers return to familiar surroundings.

Travelling despite the disorientation

Despite finding the return difficult, Agrawal does not see the experience as a reason to stop travelling. She believes the feeling is temporary, while what travel gives her can last much longer. She explained that the disorientation may last only a few days, but what she gains from saying yes to new experiences stays with her. For Agrawal, that was particularly true of her recent Sri Lanka trip. She said that if she had refused to “disorient” herself, she would never have gone to Sri Lanka or agreed to spend a month with three people she barely knew.

That decision, she said, ultimately became “one of the best months of my life.”

‘The disorientation is the price of showing up’

Agrawal sees this temporary discomfort as part of living a fuller life. She described “the disorientation” as the price of showing up for her own life and being willing to embrace uncertainty. Her reflection centres on the idea that meaningful experiences often require people to step outside their comfort zones. For her, that means being someone who says yes to unusual ideas and remains present for the people, places and moments that may only exist when she is willing to keep moving towards them.

Rather than avoiding the uncomfortable aftermath of travel, she has chosen to accept it as part of the experience.

‘I’d rather feel disoriented for a week’

Agrawal summed up her approach to travel with a simple choice: she would rather deal with a few days of feeling unsettled than miss an experience altogether. “I’d rather feel disoriented for a week than miss the thing entirely,” she wrote, before asking others whether they experience the same feeling when they move.