My personality has always been to obsess over something for a time. Once I obtain said obsession, whether it be some new shirt or home item, I move on to the next. I forget the last obsession and hone in a new one. Like with items in my life, I tend to do the same with travel. I think I want to travel non-stop. I try it for a while by spending three months gallivanting around Europe. I find after three months, I am too tired and cranky to keep this up, having no real constant home. I read about another traveler, wandering from place to place solo. I go try it out in Ireland for a month and realize while solo travel is uplifting and creates a deep sense of self, I miss those travel moments with someone I know. Like with my latest material obsessions, I guess I tend to want certain travel styles, but in the end, I know my style. I’m the homebody traveler.
There might be snow, but it's home.
I enjoy nothing more than slipping into my own bed at night, waking up to know my Internet should work. The coffee will be hot. I am perfectly content on spending the day at home. I am a homebody in every degree. As a toddler I would be dumped off at my grandparents for I hated to shop with my mom. I would rather stay home.
To make this confession might turn off some travelers of the world. I should love the adventure of going from place to place. And while I do, there will always be a pull in me to return home for break, to lounge on the couch and soak up all of its comforts. Of course, I wouldn’t be writing here if I didn’t love to leave home every once in a while. I love so many things about travel, but not solely to make it all that my life is.
I read many other travel sites, articles and blogs, telling me of different travel styles: solo, couples, long term and nomadic. I hear each and every style’s benefits. I am constantly hit over the head with that obsession. Do I want this style or that one?
I'm leaving on a jetplane...
Be True To Your Travel Style
After 24 years, I have finally accepted my travel style, the homebody traveler. While I enjoy heading to a new place for a few weeks or even a month or two, I have to come back down to earth, come back home. I have to soak up a constant life before I head back out on to the road. I have to appreciate what I have and when I have it in order to find many aspects to travel endearing.
I travel pretty much every month of the year, but I also have an apartment I call home. I enjoy traveling throughout these two extremes, a home life and a travel life. Without the two, I would not be honest with my travel style. If there is one thing I have learned from trying other travelers’ styles it is that I fail miserably when I reject my travel style. Just because it isn’t the long-term style or the solo style doesn’t make it foreign. Every travel style should be different and no two are alike.
You Never Know Until You Try
Truth be told, I never would know that the homebody travel style is for me until I gave other travel styles a go. Getting up in Ireland, traveling to new places everyday or every other day, I grew exhausted. I knew this nomadic travel style wasn’t for me.
Sometimes we can be bombarded with other traveler’s styles of moving around the globe. In the end, you really don’t know what might be for you until you try it. I used to think I could never travel alone, and then I did. While I don’t think it is exactly my style, at least I gave it a go. While being a nomad isn’t my style either, at least I tried it.
Changing Travel Styles Is Not A Sin
You have announced to the world you are a nomad or that round the world adventure for a year comes to an end. What now? I often find these moments in transition interesting to experience and observe in others. I am guilty of worrying about changing what I have laid out. In the end, travel styles change with age, position and circumstance. Don’t be afraid to admit it’s not what you want anymore.
There is my confession. I’m a homebody who also loves to travel from time to time. I have been a nomad enough to know I’m not a nomad. I can be a solo traveler and I cannot be. I can travel long term and I can’t. I know my travel style now and I will embrace it from my cozy couch at home to the lumpy couch half way around the world.
How do you define your travel style? Have you tried traveling with other styles and found they didn’t work for you?
100% agree! I believe I said this in one of my travel confessions but the nomadic, RTW lifestyle isn’t for me. I love having a place to call home. I’ve said many times that I am quite boring when I am at home. I wonder why people ever read anything I write as it is. While I love to travel, there is a simple, content side of me that enjoys my own bed and being close to home. I will never stop traveling but I don’t mind having a place I call home.
Count me as one who agrees with you 100 percent on this one!
I love the homebody traveler description, it actually describes how I feel about travel. On the one hand I love to travel, but on the other hand I also like being at home. Sometimes there’s nothing better than curling up on the couch with a cup of tea and a book. It’s great you’ve been able to try other types of travel to know what works for you. I don’t think it really matters what type of travel a person does as long as it makes them happy.
This actually describes me perfectly, so much so that I’m buying a house to live out this lifestyle completely. Go away, and always have a place to return.
And I’m not much of a solo traveler either. Let’s be friends.
No shame!
Can relate to so much of this! I love being in new places, but I also like being able to put my clothes away in drawers. I think I’m finally figuring out a travel style that works for me NOW–but who says it can’t change in the future? Joy of living, my friend.
I definitely understand how you feel. When I started really traveling all that mattered to me was seeing as much as possible. I was running around Europe like a nutter. By the end I was exhausted and actually ready to go home. Since then I’ve taken my travels much slower. I’ve actually made homes for myself at various parts of the world for awhile then moved on when I was ready. It’s really nice to actually get in touch with life in a particular culture. It’s also nice to have a bit of stability, ie internet and a bed.
Very well said, Suzy! I feel like the homebody travel lifestyle suits me very well, too. I love having the periods of nomadic life mixed in with a lot of time at home. At home, there are days when I don’t leave the house — and I don’t mind.
I think I’m finally starting to marry the two lives well, thanks in part to the fact that I want to settle in the UK but can’t get a visa. Oh well, two months in the UK and one month away, a week back and another month away!
This is how I prefer to travel as well. I like having a routine, a regular spot for dinner, and seeing familiar faces and my kitty. My husband and I love to see new places, but we also like having a home base. We get to have both without sacrificing one for the other.
Though always comfortable with long trips abroad on our last journey I found myself looking forward – at least a little – to coming home. Maybe it is getting older or perhaps because on this occasion we actually had a home to come home to rather than the usual crashing with relatives scenario. Once the novelty of seeing friends and family has worn off surely that is the worst situation? Neither travelling or sleeping in your own bed.
I loved this blog because I can relate 100%! Like you, I obsess over things, subjects (after watching the show John Adams I’m now obsessed with American History. A subject I never had an interest in), and of course travel. On the travel side, I immerse myself like a mad woman, planning, researching, reading blogs, etc. I respect those bloggers that travel non-stop. With all the years of traveling (both for work and now on my own) I always loved coming back to my home. Your article was spot on!
@Jeremy – I also agree with you. I feel that when I’m at home I’m pretty boring vice being on the road. Perhaps I’m just recharging to go back out. Also researching that next adventure and catching up with all the photos I took on previous trips. However, once the jaunt is over with, it takes me months to go through the photos and relive it.
I’m the same as you. Much as I’ve always loved travel, I’ve never had the desire to do one big RTW or jet off for months at a time. I love my home too, my dog, my routines, and for me the perfect combination is to combine all of those things rather than going to one extreme or the other.
Our travel styles sound very much alike, Suzy! Though I read blogs written by permanent nomads and sometimes find myself envious of what they’re doing, deep down I know I couldn’t do it. Not in the same way. I could travel that way for maybe a month; 2 months tops. And then I know I would be burnt out and looking for some semblance of a “normal routine.”
Now, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop traveling, or that “home” will always remain in the same location. While I don’t think I’m cut out for a truly nomadic lifestyle, the idea of being a serial expat IS starting to sound more and more appealing to me… 🙂
Hey.. I found you via Amanda from @DangerousBiz and could not agree more with your style of travel. Through much experimentation I’ve determined that while I can be an ex-pat for years at a time I cannot “travel” for more than 5-6 weeks without getting cranky. This hit home to me in NZ in January 2011 when I realized I was eager to be home after 5 weeks of exploring. Not that I was done exploring (I’ll be back in 2013) but I just needed some home time. Your “travel every month of the year” was eerie, as that’s what I decided is going to be me for 2012. Some small trips, some bigger trips, and sometimes two in a month. I’m a half day’s travel from virtually anywhere in the lower 48, which makes for a lot of long weekend opportunities. And the rest of the world is pretty close if you’re willing to sit on an airplane for a little longer.
Now to go browse the rest of your site…
I can totally relate, Suzy! I love coming home just as much as I love setting off to some foreign destination. I think combining a few styles of travel is sometimes the way to go: alternating between the nomadic lifestyle across a country only to settle in a city of interest for a few months and then fly home for a bit before embarking on another adventure or a series of puddle jumpers across your own country.
I’ve been an expat for a long time – so long that in fact I sometimes don’t know what place to call home. But that also means that I have a great home base for trips around me because it’s new. I’ve been in the same place now for seven years though and am getting kind of ready to find something new to discover 🙂
I could never put my travel style to words, but you nailed it! I think you have to come home to really appreciate leaving again!
– Great blog by the way!
This is me!
Thank you, what a lovely, affirming article to read.