Moving homes can be a slightly surreal experience, especially if you’ve been in the same place for a long time, and now have to spend the time and energy organising and decorating your new place in line with your aesthetic preferences.
Of course, transporting your belongings from place to place, decorating and settling into your new home can and should also be fun and satisfying — and this website can certainly help with the process.
But a whole other dimension of the moving experience is settling into your new neighbourhood, and that can be a bit more tricky. Here are some tips to help you on your way.
Imagine you were a tourist for a week
If you speak to people who have lived for significant lengths of time in some of the world’s most well-acclaimed and beloved cities, you’re likely to find that a huge number of them haven’t even seen the top 5 tourist attractions, despite those attractions virtually being in their back gardens.
There are some real benefits to adopting the “tourist mindset” for a while, especially when moving to a new location. For one thing, it will allow you to seek out appreciate the attractions and impressive sights that you might otherwise have missed.
For another thing, prevent you from becoming overly complacent and sitting around at home all day every day. If you really were a tourist, visiting the area, you’d be sure to make the most of your time there and get out and about as often as possible, wouldn’t you?
Ultimately, getting out and exploring the local area, and appreciating its attractions, is one of the keys to settling in and feeling content with your new surroundings.
Consider joining local clubs and classes
Pretty much wherever you move to — whether it’s a bustling metropolis or a sleepy seaside town — the local community will run certain clubs, interest groups and classes.
Joining some of these isn’t just a fantastic way of making your life a bit more interesting, and giving you something to do in the local area, it’s also an excellent way of meeting and interacting with the members of the local community.
See if there’s something happening in the vicinity that you’d be interested in getting involved with, whether it’s an art workshop, a martial arts class, or a book club.
Force yourself to get out of the house and entertain yourself in town
If you’ve moved somewhere reasonably far away from your previous haunts, and your pre-existing groups of friends, you might find that you tend to isolate yourself and stay at home more often than you normally would, after the move.
But instead of spending every free day watching Netflix and surfing the web, maybe you should consider forcing yourself to get out of the house and entertain yourself in town?
The more you engage with your surroundings, the faster you’re likely to feel settled in.
*Picture source Pixabay*