Dealing with Homesickness: Honest Advice for Movers

Six weeks after moving to the Netherlands on the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT), we were sitting in our apartment in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, and one of us started crying because we saw a photo of a Chick-fil-A sandwich on Instagram.

It wasn't about the sandwich. It was about everything the sandwich represented: familiarity, comfort, knowing where things are and how things work, the feeling of being home.

Homesickness is the thing nobody prepares you for when you move abroad. Not really. People talk about paperwork and logistics, but nobody sits you down and says: "There will be days when you question everything, and they'll be triggered by the dumbest things."

So we're going to be honest with you about what homesickness actually looks like and what helps.

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What Homesickness Actually Feels Like

It's not just missing your family or your friends, though it's that too. Homesickness is a full-body experience of displacement.

It's walking into a grocery store and not recognizing any brands. It's trying to make small talk and failing because the cultural cues are different. It's the exhaustion of everything being slightly harder than it used to be.

Some days it's an ache in your chest. Some days it's frustration that boils over at something minor, like the fact that Dutch bread is different or that nobody at the Albert Heijn smiled at you.

And some days it's fine. Some days you love your new life and feel grateful and excited. That's the confusing part. It comes and goes.

Reality Check: Almost every expat experiences homesickness, including the ones who seem to have it all together. If you're feeling it, you're not weak or ungrateful. You're human.

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When It Hits Hardest

The First Two Weeks

Surprisingly, the first two weeks are often fine. You're running on adrenaline, everything is new and exciting, and you're too busy setting up your life to feel sad.

Weeks Three Through Eight

This is when it hits. The novelty wears off, the logistics are stressful, and the reality sinks in: you live here now. This isn't a vacation. You can't fly home next week.

This is also when the small things start to grate. You're tired of figuring out which button does what on the washing machine. You're tired of not understanding conversations around you. You're tired of being tired.

Holidays

Holidays are the hardest. Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, even random ones like the Fourth of July. Anything that's tied to family traditions and American culture will amplify the homesickness. For tips on this specifically, see our guide to celebrating American holidays in the Netherlands.

Life Events Back Home

When something happens at home that you can't be part of, the homesickness spikes. A friend's wedding. A family member's health scare. A nephew's first birthday. You feel the distance acutely during these moments.

Seasons

Winter in the Netherlands is dark and gray. If you're from a sunny state, the seasonal darkness compounds the homesickness. January and February are when the most expats question whether they made the right decision.

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What Doesn't Help

Let's start with the bad advice, because you'll hear all of it.

"Just stay busy"

Being busy distracts you temporarily but doesn't address the underlying feelings. Filling your schedule to avoid sitting with the discomfort just delays the processing.

"You chose this"

Yes, we did. And we can still be sad sometimes. Choosing to move doesn't mean you forfeit the right to miss home. Anyone who says this doesn't understand that two things can be true at once.

"Think of all the people who'd love to live abroad"

Guilt-tripping yourself doesn't make homesickness go away. It just adds guilt on top of sadness.

"It'll pass"

It does eventually, but hearing this when you're in the thick of it feels dismissive. You need strategies, not platitudes.

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What Actually Helps

Let Yourself Feel It

This is the most counterintuitive advice but the most important. When homesickness hits, don't fight it. Sit with it. Cry if you need to. Call a friend and say "I'm having a hard day."

Suppressing it makes it worse. Acknowledging it lets it move through you.

Maintain Connections Intentionally

Schedule regular calls with family and friends back home. Not just texts, actual voice or video calls. We have a weekly Sunday call with our parents and a monthly video hangout with our friend group.

The key word is schedule. If you wait until you feel like calling, you'll either call too much when you're sad or not enough when you're busy.

Build a Local Community

This takes time, and it's harder than it sounds. But having people in the Netherlands who you can grab coffee with, complain to, or text when you need company makes an enormous difference.

Start with other Americans and expats. They understand what you're going through. Then gradually build Dutch friendships, which take longer but are incredibly rewarding. Our guide to making friends as an American in the Netherlands has specific strategies.

Create Routines

Routines create a sense of normalcy. Find a coffee shop you go to every morning. Take the same bike route to the grocery store. Cook dinner at the same time each night.

These small anchors give your day structure and make the Netherlands feel less foreign and more like home.

Keep Pieces of Home

We have a shelf with photos, a few American snacks, and some objects from our life in the US. It's not a shrine, just small reminders that our past exists alongside our present.

Watching American TV shows, listening to American podcasts, and following American sports also help. You don't have to disconnect from American culture to build a Dutch life.

Move Your Body

Exercise is genuinely one of the most effective tools for managing homesickness. The endorphins help, the routine helps, and getting out of your apartment helps.

Running, biking, swimming, gym classes, it doesn't matter what. Just move regularly. The Netherlands is great for outdoor exercise, especially cycling.

Set a "Reassessment Date"

When we were in the worst of our homesickness, we told ourselves: "We'll reassess at the six-month mark." This gave us a timeline. We didn't have to decide right now whether we'd made the right choice. We just had to get to six months.

By six months, things had shifted significantly. Not perfectly, but enough.

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The Stages of Homesickness

This isn't scientific, but it matches our experience and what we've heard from other expats.

Stage 1: Honeymoon (Weeks 1-3)

Everything is exciting. You're exploring, setting things up, and running on adrenaline. Homesickness is minimal.

Stage 2: The Crash (Weeks 3-8)

The excitement fades. The logistics wear you down. Homesickness hits hard. This is the danger zone where some people book return flights.

Stage 3: The Adjustment (Months 2-4)

You start building routines and making connections. Homesickness is still present but less constant. Good days become more frequent than bad days.

Stage 4: The New Normal (Months 4-8)

Life in the Netherlands starts feeling normal. Homesickness appears in waves rather than as a constant state. You have favorite restaurants, regular routes, and people to call.

Stage 5: Home Is Here (Month 8+)

The Netherlands feels like home, or at least like one of your homes. You still miss the US sometimes, but it doesn't dominate your emotional life. You've built something here.

What We Wish We Knew: The crash phase is temporary, but it doesn't feel temporary when you're in it. If we'd known it would lift, we would have been easier on ourselves.

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When Homesickness Might Be Something More

There's a difference between homesickness and depression or anxiety. Homesickness comes and goes. Depression stays.

If you're experiencing persistent sadness, loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, changes in sleep or appetite, or feelings of hopelessness that last for weeks, talk to a professional.

The Netherlands has good mental health resources available in English. Your GP (huisarts) is the first point of contact and can refer you to a psychologist or therapist. For more information, read our post on mental health resources for Americans in the Netherlands.

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What We'd Tell Ourselves Before We Moved

If we could go back and talk to ourselves before the move, here's what we'd say:

You're going to have bad days. That's not failure. That's the price of doing something big. The bad days don't mean you made the wrong choice.

Call people. Don't isolate. When you want to curl up alone, that's exactly when you should reach out. Even a five-minute call helps.

It gets better. Not immediately, not linearly, but genuinely. The first winter is the hardest. The first holidays are the hardest. After that, you've built the resilience and the community to handle it.

You can always go home. Knowing you have the option makes it easier to stay. You're not trapped. You chose this, and you can unchoose it. That freedom makes it easier to give the Netherlands a real chance.

You'll surprise yourself. We surprised ourselves. The things we thought would break us became our proudest moments. Every hard day we pushed through became evidence that we could handle more than we thought.

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The Honest Truth

Homesickness doesn't fully go away. Even after years, there are moments. A smell, a song, a photo that transports you back. You'll always carry a piece of the US with you.

But it transforms. It stops being a pain that threatens to overwhelm you and becomes a gentle ache that reminds you of who you are and where you come from.

And alongside that ache, there's the growing warmth of a life you've built in the Netherlands. New traditions, new friends, new favorite spots. Eventually, you'll realize you'd be homesick for the Netherlands if you left, too.

That's when you know you've made it.

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We're not immigration lawyers---just Americans who did this. Requirements change, so verify with official sources.