Discharge planning for a hospitalized patient is a complex but vital process. An effective discharge planning process can promote the discharge of the patient by anticipating and planning for future needs prior to departure from the hospital to the home environment. However, the question of whether discharge planning is responsive to post-discharge needs has not been adequately addressed. There is little known about the experience that helps to explain how well the discharge planning process worked and/or what it meant to the patient, family or other caregiver. The purpose of this study was to describe older patients' and their families' experiences in their transition to a rural home environment after discharge from an acute care facility and based on their perceptions, to develop a model that would increase understanding about the discharge experience from hospital to home. The study was a descriptive study using a qualitative method of inquiry. The sample was five older patients and their constellation of family caregivers, yielding an increase of eight informants for a total of thirteen study participants. The collection and analysis of qualitative data gathered from participants led to the emergence of four major themes: (1) patients and families are involved in key activities that enable them to move through the experience of discharge and return home. These activities include planning, teaching, trusting, transporting, protecting, accommodating, intervening, supporting, validating, learning, resocializing, stabilizing and normalizing; (2) patients and families shift the nature of their involvement in caregiving as they move through the experience of discharge and return home; (3) patients and families shift the nature of decision-making responsibilities as they move through the experience of discharge and return home; and (4) these key activities and shifts in caregiving and decision-making responsibilities occur along a time dimension during the experience of discharge and return home. The emergent themes led to the development of a model of restoration that represents the experience of the patient's and family's return home following hospital discharge.