1. Family
There is nothing better than coming back home to the smell of your mom’s favorite scented candle as you enter the house, the familiar loudness and family jokes and stories that you’ve missed out on the past couple of months, and catching up over the dinner table in your reserved seat where you have sat for many, many years.
2. Home food
That familiar aroma of delicious food you have been eating since the day you could remember, whether it be the local restaurant around the corner that makes the cheapest and best food you’ve ever had or the smell of homemade food you get from your bedroom whilst your mom is busy preparing in the kitchen!
3. Seeing old friends
No one knows you better than the friends who’ve watched you grow up. Going back home to reminisce over the old memories and catching up on all the stuff you’ve all done during the semester is a great way to get closer and learn how that friend who used to pull your hair now studies law yet still acts like an annoying fourteen year old.
4. Hometown things
Nothing beats going to your favorite bowling alley where you grew up playing games with everyone from your family to your friends and even with your grandparents! Then there’s running to the local supermarket and having the owner recognize you, jogging in the park and having the kids call you to play catch, and just eating at your favorite restaurants again.
5. Reuniting with your pet
Coming home is the best feeling when your pet, who’s been there for you through everything, jumps at the site of your arrival. Whether you’re taking naps with your cat or running around with your dog, animals > humans.
6. Siblings
Even if you haven’t spoken the whole time you’ve been gone, you know as soon as you get back you will be arguing over who gets the remote and who has to wash the dishes. When it comes down to it, you love them and miss them like crazy and they miss you too and as the saying goes, distance makes the heart grow fonder.
7. Using your native language
If you have a second language, there is something unexplainable about speaking in your mother tongue to the people around you in comparison to the way you talk in university. There is a sense of familiarity that you get when you can share a language with your grandmother or the local vendor and feel like a part of a community.
8. Sleeping in comfort again
Let’s all admit that if you’re living in a dorm, do you even really like sleeping in your bed? Yeah sure you may have gotten used to it and made it ‘seem’ more like home but you definitely don’t LOVE it, do you? One of the best things to look forward to is coming home to a bed that has more space, is more plush, and is more comfortable!
9. Holidays and festivities back home
Sure celebrating holidays is fun no matter where you are, but there’s like nothing coming home for the holidays and being there with your closest friends and family. Spending time at home with the family and going out with friends to the familiar places you’ve always been going to ever since you were a little kid are some things that cannot be replaced.
10. Having your laundry done
I don’t know about anyone else’s parents but I’d like to say that I feel as if my mother quite enjoys doing my laundry. Okay maybe not and I’m probably wrong but I mean come on, you know when you go home it’s a relief to know your mom is there to make sure you haven’t messed up too bad over the semester and helps you with your laundry.