🏠🌴Home is Wherever I'm With...Who?
Gringo feet
“Where’s home for you?”
I must answer some version of that question several times a week.
“Arizona,” I say hesitantly. “But I haven’t lived there in a decade.”
I usually follow up with, “I lived in Berlin for nine years, and now I’m just traveling.”
Just traveling.
As if that’s something most women typically do in their late 30s.
As if living out of two suitcases, building a life around getting better at surfing, and slowly making my way through Nicaragua solo were standard bucket list items. But this is my life. This is my sweet, sweet life.
I’m not just a traveler, I’m a slow traveler, which means I try not to “move houses” more than once a month.
Sometimes, I’m successful.
But sometimes, an old friend comes to visit, and as a ploy to curate the most blissful glimpse into my wandering life and convince them to quit their jobs and join me, I splurge on a beachside villa. Complete with balconies, hammocks, and surf racks.
That’s what I did when my dear friend and former roommate arrived last week.
Both of us just so happened to take up surfing around the same time.
Former partiers turned surfers—it’s as cliché as it sounds, and much better for our mental health.
We’d already surfed together in the Azores, and now it was time to brave the waters of Nicaragua.
But that’s not all we did - we also hopped on motorbikes, surfboards in tow, and rode a dirt road to the next break—dodging giant pigs, horses, and the occasional stray dog on the way. We even saw a sea turtle coming up for air while paddling out for a wave.
Though remote and with no “proper grocery store” within an hour’s drive, you can have anything delivered in this paradise:
+ Locally and ethically raised meat.
+ Fresh fruits and vegetables.
+ And the biggest, most buttery aguacates your eyes have ever seen.
One night, we were making chicken tacos. I was on pico duty while my friend shredded the chicken. Music played in the background, and our bodies moved to the rhythm—easy, unspoken.
And then, out of nowhere, the feeling of home warmed me from the inside.
Tears filled my eyes.
Home is not a place, at least not for a wanderer; it’s a feeling.
I’ve tried on many homes over the years— friends’ spare rooms, house-sits, volunteer gigs, a minivan, a converted goat barn in Morocco, and now, a palapa-roofed hut on the beach. And none comes close to the feeling I had in the kitchen as my friend hand-shaped corn tortillas.
My life is absolutely enriching, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Every day is a patchwork of new faces, new flavors, new colors. It stretches me, surprises me, and reminds me how vast and beautiful (and kind) the world really is.
But still—there are moments when I ache to share it with the people I love most.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I meet wonderful humans all the time. We swap travel tips, share a traditional Nica dinner after volleyball, and maybe even catch a few waves together. But often, it stays surface-level. Or, just as we begin to sink into something real, they return to Canada, France, Austria... back to the lives they’ve built, the places they call home.
But when you’re a wanderer, there is no familiar bed to return to.
No furry friend eagerly waiting for you to arrive.
No group chat of high school friends organizing a Sunday cookout.
My home as a wanderer looks a little different, and I’m learning to appreciate the beauty in this difference.
Home is the sacredness of finally shedding all your layers—to drop the performance, the small talk, the effort— in the presence of someone who truly sees you.
Someone who knew you before all the transformations.
Who reminds you who you are without asking anything of you.
Those moments don’t happen every day.
But when they do, they crack me open in the best way.
If only all my people weren’t scattered across entirely different continents...
Then again—maybe that’s the gift.
Because I don’t have one fixed place to return to,
I’ve learned to savor the in-between moments.
To soak up the quiet magic of making dinner with someone I love.
To feel the weight of presence when it’s real and shared.
To let the ordinary become sacred.
Until another old friend who feels like home comes to visit—
or I make my way to them—
I’ll keep creating a life I’m excited to wake up to.
Finding nourishment in unexpected places:
in the kindness of strangers,
in translations gone wrong,
in stray dogs who follow me home,
in seaside hammocks swaying in the breeze,
in fresh papayas delivered to my doorstep.
And the next time someone asks,
“Where’s home?”
I’ll smile.
Maybe point to the waves or the melting sun.
And say,
“For now? Right here.”