If you’re planning to go traveling around the world after high school or university, be prepared to feel some mal du pays, or homesickness, if you’re gone a long time. Traveling with friends helps!
Mal du pays is a phrase borrowed directly from French, where it literally means "homeland ache" or "homeland pain." If you use it in a postcard to your family — writing something like "I've been suffering from a touch of mal du pays this week" — be sure to provide the translation! Otherwise, your family might worry that you've caught a physical illness, like a tropical disease, rather than just a simple case of missing home.