How to cope with homesickness as an expat without gritting your teeth through it

Homesickness abroad isn’t a sign you’ve failed at this

You cope with homesickness as an expat by naming it as a real, physical stress response rather than a personal failing, building small routines that recreate familiarity, staying connected to home without letting it become the only thing you do, and letting yourself feel two things at once — glad you moved and missing home badly. It doesn’t disappear on a schedule, and it isn’t a sign the move was wrong.

If you’re reading this at 11pm scrolling photos of a place you don’t currently live, feeling like you should be further along than you are — you’re not behind. Homesickness has a shape and a timeline, and understanding both makes it easier to sit with rather than panic about.

Key takeaways

• Homesickness is a recognised stress response, not weakness — a global 2026 study of 3,100 adults across 21 countries found over 96% of some expat populations report feeling it, and it clusters with anxiety and low mood rather than sitting apart from them
• It tends to follow a predictable pattern known as the U-curve: an initial “honeymoon” phase, a crisis dip around months two to eight, then gradual adjustment — first mapped by researcher Sverre Lysgaard in the 1950s and still the most-cited model in the field
• Around 39% of expats in one Netherlands-based survey described active homesickness, but most said they missed home without wanting to abandon the move — the two feelings coexist more often than they cancel each other out
• Coping strategies that show up repeatedly in research fall into two camps: staying connected to home, and actively building a life where you are — relying on only one tends to backfire
• Constant video calls home can soothe in the short term and stall adjustment in the long term if they replace effort to build local life — the research calls this out directly, and it’s worth taking seriously
• If homesickness sits alongside persistent low mood, loss of interest in things, or it’s been dragging for months with no shift, that’s worth talking to someone about — not because you’re failing, but because ongoing support is exactly what it’s for

Ready to talk it through with someone who’s actually lived the expat side of this? Book a free 20-minute consultation, and we’ll figure out what’s actually going on for you.

Why does moving abroad make you homesick even when you wanted to go?

Because homesickness isn’t really about the place — it’s about the sudden absence of a thousand small, automatic things your nervous system relied on without you noticing: the layout of a familiar supermarket, a language you don’t have to translate in your head, a friend who gets your humour without an explanation. Researchers studying homesickness in expatriates describe it as a genuine stress condition with psychological and physical consequences, not a mood you can simply choose.

This is why wanting to be abroad and feeling homesick aren’t contradictions. You can have made the right decision and still be grieving what it cost you. Grief is often the more useful word — you’re mourning a version of daily life that isn’t available right now, even if it’s still there waiting when you visit.

Is it normal to still feel homesick years into living abroad?

Yes, and it’s more common than the “you’ll settle in eventually” narrative suggests. The U-curve model of cultural adjustment, first proposed by Sverre Lysgaard after studying Norwegian scholars in the US, maps four stages: an initial honeymoon phase, a crisis phase where the novelty wears off and the differences start to grind, a gradual recovery, and an eventual sense of feeling at home. But the curve isn’t a guarantee — later researchers have found it doesn’t fit everyone, and some people cycle through the dip more than once, especially around anniversaries or family milestones back home.

Homesickness resurfacing a year or three years in usually isn’t regression at all. It’s often triggered by something specific — a big life event you’re missing, a change in circumstances abroad, or simply reaching the point where the initial adrenaline of the move has worn off, and you’re facing the distance without a project to distract you from it.

What percentage of expats actually experience homesickness?

The numbers vary depending on who’s surveyed and how the question is asked, but they’re consistently high. A 2026 global study by Remitly, surveying 3,100 adults across 21 countries, found homesickness rates above 96% among some national groups living abroad, intensifying around milestones and difficult moments rather than sitting as a constant background hum. An earlier survey of expats in the Netherlands put the figure at 39% reporting active homesickness, with most describing missing home without wanting to return immediately.

That gap says something useful: how you define “homesick” changes the answer. A twinge of nostalgia and a debilitating ache that stops you from functioning are both homesickness, but they need very different responses.

What coping strategies actually work for homesickness?

Research into expatriate coping strategies tends to split what people actually do into two broad approaches: staying tethered to home, and building genuine roots where you currently are. The mistake is picking one and skipping the other.

Staying tethered means regular contact with people from home and keeping traditions, foods, and rituals alive — nearly 70% of homesick expats in the Remitly study said frequent digital contact was their main coping tool, and there’s nothing wrong with that as one part of the picture. Building roots is the slower work: enough of the local language to have a real conversation, one or two people you’d actually call if something went wrong, a version of your old routines that works here rather than one you’re trying to import wholesale.

The strategies that hold up over time are almost always both at once, not either. Calling home every single day while making zero local connections tends to keep the crisis phase of the U-curve going longer than it needs to — you’re soothing the ache without touching what’s causing it. Cutting contact with home entirely to “make it easier” just stores up grief for later, usually at a worse time than now.

A few things that genuinely help: set a repeating time to speak to home, so contact happens on schedule rather than at 2am mid-spiral. Recreate one specific ritual — a meal, a walk, a way you spend Sunday — rather than trying to replicate everything. Give yourself a realistic timeline; research on cross-cultural adjustment puts meaningful adaptation somewhere between six months and two years, not weeks. And separate missing home from wanting to go back — untangling the two tends to make the whole thing less frightening.

When does homesickness become something to get support for?

Homesickness on its own — even intense, frequent homesickness — isn’t a mental health problem. It’s worth reaching out about when it starts affecting your sleep, appetite, or ability to function for more than a couple of weeks, when it’s sitting alongside a broader low mood or loss of interest in things, when you notice you’re isolating rather than reaching out, or when the distress feels bigger than the situation warrants and you can’t work out why. None of that means something’s wrong with you — it means your current coping strategies aren’t matched to what you’re carrying right now, and that’s exactly what counselling for expats exists for.

There’s also a specific version of this worth naming: not belonging anywhere — feeling too changed for home and not quite from where you live now. That’s a different, often longer-running thread than homesickness itself, common enough among people who’ve lived abroad that it has its own body of research under terms like “third culture” identity.

Does online counselling actually work for expats, or is it worth waiting until you’re back home?

It works, and for a lot of expats it’s the only realistic option — you’re not always near a therapist from your home country, and a local one won’t always know why a specific holiday or piece of news is hitting you hard. Online therapy for people living abroad means working with a counsellor who understands your cultural context, from the practical reality of time zones to the less obvious stuff — being the only person in a room who gets a reference, or explaining grief for a place nobody around you has been to.

Some people specifically look for a counsellor from their home country or with lived experience of moving abroad, and there’s a real case for that — less time explaining context, more time on what’s underneath it. If you’re weighing up whether expat counselling is worth it against waiting it out, the honest answer is that waiting works for some people and leaves others stuck in the same low-grade grief for years — never quite bad enough to act on and never quite gone either.

Frequently asked questions

Is homesickness a sign I made the wrong decision moving abroad?

No. Homesickness measures how much you’ve left behind, not whether leaving was right. Plenty of people feel it hardest in the exact moves they’d make again without hesitation.

How long does homesickness usually last?

There’s no fixed timeline, but the U-curve model suggests a crisis dip somewhere between two and eight months in, with gradual adjustment after that — though it can resurface around anniversaries or big life events indefinitely. If it’s still constant after a year with no shift, that’s worth exploring with someone rather than waiting it out further.

Can homesickness turn into depression?

They’re linked but not the same thing. Homesickness shares vulnerability factors with anxiety and low mood, and unaddressed homesickness can tip into something more persistent, particularly alongside isolation. If low mood or appetite and sleep changes sit alongside it for more than a couple of weeks, it’s worth talking to a professional rather than assuming it’ll pass.

Does going home for a visit make homesickness better or worse?

Both, usually in sequence. Visits bring real relief followed by a fresh wave of grief on return — sometimes called re-entry shock — because you’re re-experiencing the leaving all over again. That’s not a reason to avoid visits, but it’s worth planning for the dip afterwards.

What’s the difference between homesickness and not feeling like you belong anywhere?

Homesickness is missing a specific place. Not belonging anywhere is broader and often longer-running — home has changed while you were away, or you’ve changed too much to fully fit back in, while not being fully “from” where you live now either. They often show up together but need slightly different things to work through.

If you’re finding a specific move, loss, or stretch of homesickness harder than you think it should be, book a free 20-minute consultation, and we can talk through what’s actually going on.