In my opinion, one of the most important part of your travels is getting back into your normal life. The post-travel/post-vacation slump is very real and can be very difficult to deal with, so having a plan to get back into your life is just as important as all your pre-trip prep.

Combatting Jet Lag//

If you are crossing time zone you know how hard it is to get back into working in the correct time zone.

No matter how you are moving across time zones, I think the very best thing you can do is stay awake into the night. You don’t have to stay up super late, but try to stay up until at least 9 or 10 pm (I try to go for 10, but sometimes you just can’t make it). If you are getting in early in the day, make plans for that day so that you have to stay awake, because if you are left to your own devices you will fall asleep. So making plans with friends or family in your destination, go for a walk, have a late dinner reservation, whatever you need to do – EXCEPT anything sitting, that includes bus tours, theatre, or movies. You will fall asleep. And then set an alarm to wake up in the morning. It is a holiday, so I typically go for like 9am. However, if you are going backwards in time, then you will probably wake up very early in the morning (I was up at 3am yesterday, because that was 9 in UK time), but if you can, try to either fall back asleep or be super lazy and not get out of bed until a reasonable wake up time.

TLDR: make an effort in your first couple days to actively follow the routine of your current time zone. Push through the jet lag.

Quick Clean//

Okay, so in an ideal world I would clean my apartment before I leave for vacation, including washing my sheets and I would return to a pristine, perfect apartment. However, I have a cat that is responsible for 60% of the mess in my apartment and teenage boy pet sitters.

The culprit

My cat likes to spend time in my bed, so I don’t wash my sheets before I leave and then when I get back they are full of cat hair. So when I walk in the door (provided it’s before 8pm) I drop my bags and immediately strip my bed and wash my bedding so that it will be ready by the time it’s time for me to go to bed (this also helps with the staying awake thing).

While my bedding is in the wash I inspect the apartment for any cat messes: hair tumbleweeds, hairballs, etc. and pick those up and do a basic wipe down of the messes. Then I vacuum my floors and that makes my apartment feel tolerable.

The Suitcase//

This is the worst part of the entire process. While I am traveling I try to sort my laundry. This latest trip I was using packing cubes for the first time (love), and I brought an empty one to use for dirty laundry and then as I wore clothes and my “clean” packing cubes got emptier, I converted one of the “clean” cubes to a “dirty” cube. So I don’t have to sort my clothes when I get home, which is a game changer.

So I will dump all my dirty clothes into the hamper. Next is to grab my toiletry bags and put all of those things in the bathroom. I will unpack my toiletry bags as I get ready for bed that night. This step is just about getting them out of the case and into the right space.

I don’t put a ton of pressure on myself to completely unpack immediately, but I also need most of the stuff that I took on the trip for my normal life, and I don’t really have the space to just leave the suitcase out and half unpacked long term. Those two things really help me to get it unpacked.

Moving Forward//

This to me is the most important part. I keep a frozen pizza in my freezer to eat in the evening when I get home. I get groceries on the way home from the airport and meal plan in the plane on the way home so that I know what I am eating when I get home (this is most important if you are getting home during the work week and starting back to work or school right away). I prep my breakfast for the next day, I prep ingredients for lunches. I schedule workouts for the next few days so that I can starting feeling physically good again after my holidays.

The First Weekend After//

Now, this is where the big work is. The first weekend after you are home is where The Big Clean comes in. If you still have bags to unpack, you completely unpack them and put everything away. You wash all the clothes (if you don’t have to wash your sheets the second you get home, then I would recommend also washing your bedding). You are doing laundry all weekend.

If you have pets and they stayed in your place while you were away, vacuum your soft furnishings, get all that accumulated hair off. Vacuum windowsills, wash slipcovers. Dust furniture and wall hangings, clean your bathroom and kitchen, vacuum and mop your floors. Attack any spider webs that developed while you were gone.

If you have a cat, this is probably a really good time to fully scrape out and wash out the litterbox.

This seems like a really good argument for what some of my rich pet sitting clients did, which was have a house cleaner come the day before they came home to wipe down all surfaces, wash bedding, and vacuum.

Good luck!

Laura