How to Fall in Love with Your Hometown Again

When you’re settled in a city for too long, let’s say your entire life, everything about the place could start to wear on you. The pace, the sights, the things to do…to you it all seems so “been there, done that.” But if you can’t pack up and move somewhere new just yet, there are ways to soothe that jaded side of you and fall in love with home again. Below are nine things you can do to rediscover all the little things that make your town great.

1. Invite out-of-towners into your home for a visit. The whole city will be completely new to them and you'll be able to feed off of their excitement. You’ll be forced to show and tell them about the cool spots in your town and, in turn, start appreciating your town so much more because you'll see it through someone else’s eyes.

2. Take a walking tour of your own city. Learn about its history, architecture, and its key figures as you actually pay attention to the sights. You can either find free tours you can print and follow online, borrow guides from your library, or sign up for a walking tour through town.

3. Explore a neighborhood you've never visited before. Find cool places to see, eat, and do while you're there. You might fall in love with a different part of town that could someday become your next zip code.

4. Watch movies set in your city and squeal when you recognize a landmark on the screen. Great cinematography can really make a place come alive.

5. Leave town for a while. There's nothing like being out on the road for a couple weeks or even days to make you feel grateful to be reunited with family, friends, and your own bed.

6. Write a list of all the things you haven't done in your hometown whether it's something you've always felt was too "touristy" for a local like you or are more obscure, and then make plans to tackle each item on your list.

7. Join local Meetup groups based on your interests. Finding awesome people to do the things you love instantly makes a place feel much more inviting.

8. Ask your parents or older family members about the places where they hung out when they were younger. Have them drive you around pointing out how things have changed since then and try to see your town through their eyes. Bring along old photographs for comparisons and lots of reminiscing.

9. People watch. So much of life zooms right past us when we fail to take a moment to actually look. Humanize your town again by paying attention to the people who inhabit it.

What do you do to keep that spark between you and your hometown alive?

Image: Unsplash/Wojtek Witkowski