Travelling changes who you are as a person.

Anthony Bourdain says it the best,

Returning home from long term travel and stepping off that final flight is a mixture of emotions. On one side it’s exciting; you get to visit your friends and family, sleep in your own bed, cuddle your dog, eat at your favourite restaurant and return to everything you know and love, on the other side it’s terrifying; what are you suppose to do now, how do you fit back into a regular life, is anything going to be drastically different?

At first we didn’t really struggle with being home because we were so excited to be back in that familiar territory. That didn’t last long.

The moment we realized that we had changed significantly and home hadn’t was when someone said to us,

“I don’t know why you even did that, but now it’s time to settle down and buy a house.”

Everything had been the exact same as we had left, we were expected to settle down, go back to our 9-5 jobs, buy a house, go to the same places we had always gone and eat the same things we always ate. We couldn’t, there was just no way. Every nomad in the world will understand how we felt in that moment.

As we got back in the car we realized that we would probably never live a life like that, we may never own a house, or have a 25+year career, or have a perfectly planned out retirement plan. We would most likely live paycheck to paycheck, take any jobs we could get, and save all of our extra money for that next adventure.

Travelling long term had left a long term mark on us, one that we will never shake. Sometimes the realization that we are broke is terrifying but the realization that one day we will see and experience the world makes it all better.

The open road is where we belong, it is where we feel most at home.

Home is no longer a stationary place, but rather it is something that moves with us and something that changes as we change.

How has coming home after travelling effected you? 

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