Lucy Styles, a 25-year-old backpacker, completely stunned her family after flying home 7,000 miles to surprise them. Prior to her homecoming surprise, Styles had been traveling around the world for 15 months. The backpacker gave no indication that she was coming home. Once she arrived home after traveling for 36 hours, the 25-year-old decided to record her family’s reactions to her return.
Ending an incredible backpacking trip around the world can be a big let down. Planning a big family surprise, helped Styles transition back into her ‘normal’ life. Lucy explained to Mirror, “When you finish travelling it is quite sad, as you know your life will be different when you get home but planning this surprise made it really fun.” Preparing this great of a surprise for her family proved to be quite difficult. The 25-year-old admitted, “I didn’t even know if my parents would be home. I didn’t have a house key or anything and I couldn’t ask them any questions in case it made them suspicious. Before surprising my mum, it was a strange feeling, I was really nervous and shaking, but excited more than anything.”
The surprise lived up to everything she had imagined. Her mother was completely shocked when she opened the front door to find her daughter. Lucy shared, “Then when she saw me she began screaming and then laughing, her reaction was very special, she was so shocked and so happy at the same time.”
Her dad was equally as shocked. When he found his daughter sitting in the living room, he was completely speechless. “Surprising my dad was great too. He’s never not speaking but was left speechless when he saw me and was in pure shock,” shared Styles. Even though it took almost two days to get home, getting to see her family made the exhaustion completely justifiable. The world-traveler shared, “To get home I was traveling for 36 hours but it was worth it seeing the looks on their faces.”
Lucy enjoyed surprising her family so much, that she decided to try to surprise as many people as she could and record their reactions on video. Styles said,”I was going to leave it at that, but when my friend Julie came round for dinner, she suggest that we carry on surprising more of my friends. After surprising my family went so well, it became my mission to do it to as many friends as I could.” Now, Lucy loves to rewatch all of the reactions she captured.