Whether you are simply traveling to another country for a week, a few months, or a few years, it is a unique experience that will teach you countless lessons and leave you forever changed with memories you will never forget. But many forget to mention the struggles that come with living abroad.

Just a few weeks ago, my husband and I arrived home after living in Thailand for two months. Two months may not sound very long, but it is a long time to be living on the other side of the world. Soon after arriving in Thailand we were hit with a massive learning curb. We faced many challenges that we wish people would have warned us about. So, if you are planning to travel to the other side of the world, here are some things we learned that you might appreciate.

1. The plane ride is brutal.

I’m sorry, there is no avoiding it. When traveling across the world you will have multiple flights and at least one that is anywhere between twelve and sixteen hours. With layovers and airport time, be prepared to be traveling for over twenty-four hours straight! The first few hours of our sixteen-hour flight were tolerable, but then it started to get really old. The last three hours of our flight were agony, every muscle in my body ached and I felt like screaming to get off the plane. Reaching the ground after two days of travel is a relief!

2. Jet lag is horrible.

Jet lag may be different for everyone, but what I experienced both after traveling to Thailand, and again after arriving back in America was not easy. I continually felt tired and dizzy for days and lost my appetite. Traveling across the world will wipe you out so always give yourself a few days to adjust when arriving. I personally need about five days.

3. It can be hard to find time to communicate with people back home.

This was something I never fully adjusted to. I had to talk to my family early in the morning, which was the evening for them, and I do not like talking on the phone when I'm tired. I'm also not a morning person.

4. It can be hard adjusting to the local cuisine.

As delicious as Thai food is, it is not easy to eat for every meal every day. Most of the dishes are very spicy, I usually stopped eating, not when I was full, but when my mouth was burning too much to eat anymore. Other dishes were very different and strange. Durian, for example, is a favorite fruit of many of the locals; I don’t know if I could ever get used to its bizarre taste and texture. Dried fish was another weird one for me, some were okay, but others tasted way too fishy. All these new foods not only take time for your taste buds to try to adjust to but your stomach as well.

5. You may desperately begin to miss American food.

You may find yourself desperately needing to run to McDonald’s or KFC. After two months, my husband and I grew tired of Thai food and were desperate for something more normal to us, we needed American food again! I never thought I would crave mashed potatoes and steak so bad!

6. It is hard not being able to communicate the most basic things.

When you can’t speak the language, it becomes a struggle to communicate the most basic things, like where you need to go when talking to a taxi driver or trying to order food at a restaurant, all things you take for granted when everyone speaks the same language as you do.

7. You will find yourself using hand gestures and pointing at everything to communicate.

When you don't have the words, hand gestures, pointing, and making faces will become your new tools for communication. And even though you may not fully be able to communicate your thoughts to your new friends, at least you can make faces and laugh. Laughter is something people from all over the world have in common, and I am thankful for that!

8. You will have to remind yourself how to speak right.

This was an interesting experience I did not expect! I got so used to speaking basic English words so people could understand me, that I had to consciously remind myself how to speak normally again when talking to people back home.

9. When you arrive home again you will be amazed that everyone can understand you.

I have to admit, the first week or two back in America, I found myself pleasantly surprised every time I ordered food or talked to anyone that they could fully understand everything I was saying. After living in a country for two months where most people spoke little English, I was so happy that people could understand me again!

10. You will experience a lot of miscommunication.

Get used to dealing with a lot of miscommunication, it is unavoidable even with people who are nearly fluent in English, you find that your words get lost in translation and even when you think you understand each other and everyone agrees, you later find out that they completely misunderstood you, and this can be very frustrating.

11. Cultural barriers are a challenge.

Not only do you not understand each other when speaking, but on top of that, you will notice many cultural differences that will occasionally leave you confused and embarrassed. People will not understand why you do and say certain things and vice versa. The best thing to do is ask questions and when you embarrass yourself, just try to laugh, move on and realize that you cannot be perfect. This was not easy for me, I wanted to do my best to honor their culture but always seemed to mess up and do things wrong.

12. You may find yourself constantly worrying about if what you say or do will offend someone or not.

No matter how much you might try to learn about the culture, there are countless little things that you cannot expect yourself to know. If you are like me, you may find yourself over analyzing everything you say or do, from how you eat or walk, or dress, to how you say hello or what sort of hand gestures may be offensive or not. As you can imagine, all this worrying gets mentally exhausting very fast. It is good to want to honor the culture, but there is no way that you can change all the habits you took a lifetime to learn and learn a whole set of completely new ones overnight. And hopefully, the people around you can accept you for who you are and recognize that you come from a different culture too.

13. You will have to relearn how to do the most basic things.

Have you ever used a squat toilet? Yes, I had to learn how to use one! I also began learning the Thai Alphabet and felt like a preschooler again, that was fun!

14. You will miss your family.

This may be one of the more obvious ones, and I have been used to missing my family ever since I moved away from them four years ago, but it is one thing to be just a two-hour plane ride away from your family versus being on the opposite side of the world from them. I felt like I was on another planet since I was so far from home. Probably the one I missed the most, however, was my cat who I thought about every day! I am happy to finally be home with her again.

As you can tell, traveling is no joke. It is not easy. Everyone talks about traveling the world and how they have wanderlust these days, yet no one prepared me for these things, hopefully, you will be more prepared if you decide to travel to the other side of the world. With all of this said, I am thankful for the experience of living in another world so uniquely different from my own for two months. It was an experience unlike any other that challenged me in ways I never thought possible. I enjoyed all the new experiences, the people I met, the sights I saw, it was an unforgettable adventure, but for now, I am glad to be back in America and able to relax after my long journey.