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In German, the word Fernweh translates roughly as "farsickness." It denotes the desire to be somewhere other than where you are now. It was coined as an antonym to Heimweh, or "homesickness."

Does English have a good word to indicate the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else?

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  • Related:english.stackexchange.com/questions/212474/…
    – user66974
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 15:06
  • @Josh61: not really about wanting a different life or forgetting about the past, as that question asks, but as in: here I am at my desk working (and I love my work), but right now I wish I were on the dock at Manhattan Beach.
    – Rusty Tuba
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 15:08
  • Two related concepts are cabin fever - when we're stuck indoors someplace for extended periods of time and just want to get out, and daydreaming, when we fantasize about being somewhere else.
    – Kristina Lopez
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 15:12
  • Isn't it Longing.
    – justjoined
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 15:13
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    There is the same question in german.stackexchange. They suggested "itchy feet" there.
    – ermanen
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 16:28

2 Answers 2

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Depending on the context, wanderlust might work for you: "strong longing for or impulse toward wandering" (M-W), depending on how much you associate Fernweh with the act of travelling as opposed to the state of being away from home.

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  • Funny that wanderlust is a German word also and loaned by English. We might loan "fernweh" also, who knows. Wikipedia says: "In modern German, the use of the word Wanderlust to mean "desire to travel" is less common, having been replaced by Fernweh (lit. "farsickness"), coined as an antonym to Heimweh ("homesickness")."
    – ermanen
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 16:33
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    @ermanen: FWIW, as a German phrase I'd put "Wanderlust" with "Weltschmerz" in that it's a semantically valid word, but I've never heard it actually used by native speakers. (I'm not a philosopher, though, so my sample might be skewed.)
    – Ulrich Schwarz
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 16:56
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Sometimes I use the phrase "a travel itch" when I stay home too long.

It might be described as

  • "the feeling someone gets when they've stayed home for too long, knowing there is a lot to do and see elsewhere.
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