How to Deal With Homesickness While Studying Abroad: Your First Month

Nobody warns you that the hardest part of studying abroad is not the visa, the admin or the language. It is a random Tuesday in week three when your flat is quiet, your phone is full of photos from a group chat back home, and you suddenly miss your mum's kitchen so much it physically aches. That is homesickness, and it is completely normal. The good news: it responds incredibly well to a few specific moves. This is the plan we give every new student, and almost all of it comes down to one word, connection.

Why does homesickness hit hardest in the first month?

The first week abroad is usually a high. New city, new freedom, everything is a photo. Then the novelty wears off, the practical stuff piles up, and your brain starts comparing this strange new place to the comfort you left behind. For most students that dip lands somewhere between week two and week four. It is not a sign you made the wrong choice. It is just your nervous system asking for the two things it lost in the move: routine and people. Give it both, quickly, and the homesickness shrinks fast.

The students who struggle longest are almost always the ones who waited. They told themselves friends would "just happen" once lectures started, then spent three lonely weekends scrolling. The students who barely felt it are the ones who built a little life on purpose in the first fortnight. You can absolutely be the second kind.

How do I build a routine that actually helps?

Homesickness loves an empty calendar. The single most effective thing you can do in week one is give your days a shape, even before classes are in full swing. Routine tells your brain "this is home now" far faster than any pep talk.

• Anchor your mornings: pick one cafe near your place and go often enough that they recognise you. Being a regular somewhere is a tiny, real form of belonging.
• Move your body on a schedule: a gym membership, a run route, a swim, a five-a-side game. Same time, same days. Exercise is one of the most reliable mood levellers there is.
• Cook one thing that tastes like home: track down the ingredients for a dish your family makes. Eating it in your new kitchen quietly rewires the place from "strange" to "mine".
• Set a calling rhythm, not a calling habit: talk to people back home, of course, but pick set times. Calling home every time you feel low keeps one foot permanently on the plane and stops you investing where you actually live now.

How do I make a new city feel like mine?

A city stops feeling foreign the moment you have places in it that belong to you. You do not need to "see everything". You need three or four spots you return to until they feel like yours: a bakery, a park bench with a view, a cheap dinner place, a bar where the staff start nodding at you. Claim them in your first two weeks.

It helps to know what "normal" costs so you can build these habits without panic-budgeting. Here is what the everyday stuff actually runs in two of our busiest student cities, straight from their city pages:

A €2 coffee in Gràcia or a €3 beer after class is not just a price, it is permission to build a habit somewhere. Once a place is in your weekly rotation, the homesickness has less room to sit.

What does it cost to feel at home across Europe?

If you are still choosing where to land, or just want to know your new city's rhythm, here is the everyday baseline in a few favourites. Figures come straight from each city page so they match exactly what you will plan around.

Figures are in each city's local currency, so the euro cities show €, and Budapest shows Hungarian forint (Ft). Budapest is the budget champion of the group, which is part of why it is such a popular soft landing for a first year abroad.

How do I actually meet people in a new country?

This is the part that fixes homesickness for real, and it is the part students most often get wrong by overthinking. You do not need to be outgoing or fluent. You need to put yourself in rooms where other people are also new and also a bit nervous. In your first weeks, those rooms are everywhere if you look:

• Join your city's WhatsApp community before you even land. It is the fastest shortcut from "I know no one" to "someone just invited me to dinner". People post flat questions, swap SIM-card tips, and organise spontaneous nights out. You arrive with the chat already warm.
• Say yes to the Welcome Festival in your first days. It is built for exactly this moment: a few days of events designed so that a city full of strangers turns into a friend group before lectures start. The students who go almost never describe a lonely first month, because the dip hits after they already have people.
• Repeat-exposure beats one big effort: the same yoga class, the same language exchange, the same Tuesday football. Friendship is mostly just familiarity plus time, so show up to the same things twice.
• Use your flat and your course: knock, introduce yourself, propose a low-stakes plan ("anyone want a coffee?"). Most people are quietly relieved someone else went first.

If you want to see which cities have an active community and a Welcome Festival running, start by opening your city and open your city.

What if my room or flat is making it worse?

Sometimes homesickness is not really emotional, it is environmental. A grim, unfurnished room with no one around makes everything harder. If your housing is the problem, fix the housing rather than blaming yourself. For rooms and student-friendly places to live, we point people to our sister brand Socials Homes, and in Budapest and Riga specifically to Fuse Stays, who run all-inclusive student co-living where you move into a building that already has other students in it. Living somewhere with built-in people is one of the most underrated homesickness cures going.

What do students get wrong about homesickness?

Three big ones, over and over:

• They treat it as a character flaw. Missing home does not mean you are weak or that you should not be here. It means you had a home worth missing. Everyone feels it, even the loud confident ones.
• They wait for it to pass instead of building. Homesickness does not fade on its own nearly as fast as it fades when you fill the calendar and meet people. Action beats waiting, every time.
• They stay glued to the group chat back home. Comfort is fine in small doses, but living in your old life on your phone is the surest way to feel like a visitor in your new one. Connection has to happen where you actually are.

Give it routine, give it a few places that are yours, and above all give it people. Do that in your first fortnight and the homesickness you were dreading mostly never arrives.

Frequently asked questions