How do you fight homesickness?

For me, homesickness surprisingly strikes hardest on the very first day (or first few days) - I like perfect continuation in my life and I guess the sudden ability to not be able to do all the stuff I could do in my last location frustrates me. For others, homesickness can strike after the first few months - after the novelty of a new location has worn off and some people can just wake up one day after many happy years abroad with an insatiable yearning to return 'home'.

The Times recommends that homesickness is something which should be indulged in for the short term. Take those feelings and turn them into something positive like going through old photos, remembering old relationships and maybe even writing a blog to keep everyone back home in the loop.

Aside from my obligatory first day blues in Ukraine, I rarely feel homesick because with modern technology - home is here with me now. Undoubtedly, the most important thing in my life is my Samsung Smartphone. I rate Samsungs as I find them more or less indestructible which is useful for a clumsy fool like myself. Apart from being indestructible, my smartphone enables me to generate an artificial home where ever I am using a local SIM card and a few downloaded apps.

The first thing I did when I got to Ukraine was to set myself up with a SIM card from Life:) Life seem to be one of the better operators in Ukraine, most of their stores have people who can speak a little English and they have some good internet tariff options. As soon as my phone is connected to the internet, I immediately use the small Gmail, Facebook and Twitter apps to restore contact with my social network. Being able to communicate instantly with friends and family is one of the surest ways to beat homesickness - social networking has the added benefit of letting you avoid meeting family or friends face to face and the inconvenience of remembering just how annoying their company was in the first place.

The second thing I do to battle homesickness, Is to read a few books or listen to some music. After spending all day surrounded by Cyrillic characters and being immersed in Ukrainian, it’s genuinely refreshing to get home and read a few pages of the latest bond novel in PDF or listen to an audio book with the relaxing tone of Stephen Fry. Being able to do exactly the same things in a new country, as in your old country, really does add comfort to your expat experience.

After all of the above, if I'm still pining for home, I watch a movie. Yeah, I know Hollywood movies perfectly capture how life was back home :p so immersing myself in one for a few hours always seems to make me more motivated to be abroad. Currently, I'm using the excellent Drive Through Reviews, to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Basically, whatever DTR recommends, I watch.

I guess all of my ideas focus around using technology to make a ‘little home’ in your new country. Technology really does make the world a smaller place.

So this is my advice for combating homesickness, what do others recommend?