Soft Places: Finding Self-Care in London While Far From Home

We at The Edge love to romanticize studying abroad, the city lights, the accents, the endless exploring as everyone does. And yes, London is that girl. But what we don’t talk about enough is the quiet moments in between. The ones where the excitement fades just a little, and suddenly, you miss your home or your campus in ways you didn’t expect.

Homesickness doesn’t always arrive loudly. Sometimes, it slips in while you’re on the London Underground, surrounded by strangers and someone looks a little too much like your grandparent or best friend or while you’re walking past the River Thames, wishing you had someone familiar beside you. In those moments, self-care becomes less about luxury and more about survival. 

So, we started looking for soft places.

Not necessarily physical ones, although London has plenty, but moments that felt familiar to us. Rituals and tiny habits that make a foreign city feel just a little more like home. Rituals and tiny habits that make a foreign city feel just a little more like home. The kind of habits that do not look impressive on social media but feel essential in real life.

It might look like finding your “regular” café and ordering the same drink or meal until the barista starts to recognize you. Or taking a slow walk through Hyde Park with headphones on, letting the noise of the city soften into something quieter, something you can hold. Watching people pass by, letting yourself exist without pressure, without needing to be anywhere or anyone in particular. It is in these spaces that London stops feeling overwhelming and starts feeling livable even if just for a few more weeks. 

Sometimes self-care looks like doing less, not more.

Self-care abroad also means holding onto the rituals you brought with you: your skincare routine, favorite playlist that somehow sounds different when you are this far from home, or that one hoodie you refuse to let go of, even if it does not match the London aesthetic you imagined for yourself. There is something grounding about recreating the familiar in an unfamiliar place. It reminds you that even though everything around you has changed, you are still you. You are allowed to take pieces of home with you.

And then there is the beauty of creating new rituals, ones that only exist here. Journaling by a window while it rains, because it will rain. Calling home while sitting on a quiet bench. Letting yourself wander without a destination and ending up somewhere unexpectedly comforting;  a bookstore, a side street, a view you did not plan for but needed anyway.

Even fashion starts to shift. We at the Edge noticed that in moments of homesickness, style becomes less about impressing and more about protecting your energy. It is oversized layers, soft fabrics, and outfits that feel like a hug. It is choosing comfort over performance. London street style may be bold, curated, and a little intimidating, but your version of it can be gentle. It can be yours.

There is also something to be said about giving yourself permission to not be “on” all the time. Studying abroad can feel like a constant highlight reel, like you should be making the most of every second. But self-care sometimes looks like staying in, watching a familiar show, or eating something that reminds you of home. It looks like slowing down in a city that never really does.

And maybe that is what self-care abroad really is, not fixing the homesickness, but learning how to sit with it. To soften it. To understand that missing home does not mean you are not grateful to be here. To build a life around it that still feels full. Both can exist at the same time. 

Because eventually, those soft places, the café, the park, the quiet street you always take, start to feel like yours. They become part of your routine, part of your story in this city.

And one day, without realizing it, London does not just feel like somewhere you are visiting.

It starts to feel like a place you belong.

What little rituals are helping you feel at home, no matter where you are? Tell us your soft places @theedgemag