There are many reasons that people love to travel. It is something that nearly every person in the world longs to do. From the office worker stuck in a 9 to 5 job, or the housewife who just doesn’t manage to get out enough. Ask either of them and they will probably say that they are working toward something. And usually, that is a vacation. A holiday. It is their longing to travel.
I am not writing this article to discuss that, however.
This is a personal blog article. It is not meant to be a list of reasons why people love to travel. This is why I love to travel. It is about me.
Which means, it COULD be about you too.
Let’s see.
I have been all over the world. Several times in fact, however I still remember the first time many years ago. The world has changed a lot since then. But ever since I sailed (literally) off into the sunset all those years ago and got my first taste of life away from home, I was hooked.
My life, and love, would always be on the road. I realized it then, and have known it ever since.
I have never really had a home. I grew up in Australia, and if anything, I guess that will always be my home. By that, I mean that it’s where I come from. It’s who I am.
But I have never felt like I had an ACTUAL home. Somewhere that I was happy. Where I could sit back and say, “I belong here”. There was never one place that I would be content to just stop and stay, never to leave again, other than on some annual vacation to an over rated holiday park on a beach somewhere.
No. My life yearned for more.
Don’t get me wrong. I have lived in some wonderful places.
I grew up in Brisbane, in Queensland Australia. I lived the early part of my life between there and the Gold Coast, and for anyone who has visited Australia, that probably seems idyllic. For me, I didn’t know much different, and the name of a city such as Sydney just seemed so far away that it was out of reach.
My Introduction to Travel
Then I joined the Navy. I moved immediately to Melbourne, and my life of travel began. I saw a new life open before me, and with eyes wide I began to realize that the world was so much more than the tiny bubble I had always known. Brisbane was in my rear-view mirror, and I never intended returning.
In the coming years I travelled the world and then settled, for want of a better word, in Newcastle, Australia. I loved Newcastle, and as I raised a young family, I could not have found a more beautiful and diversified place. I travelled to the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Bali in that time. I developed a passion for snow skiing which exists to this day. (My daughter became an instructor, so maybe I passed something along).
But when the opportunity came to move thousands of Kilometers away to Perth, I jumped at it. Western Australia is an amazing place, and I loved the few years I lived there. But still, I yearned for more.
After a few years I moved back East. This time, due to circumstances and job opportunities I ended up back in South East Queensland and in my old stomping grounds of the Gold Coast and Brisbane. I knew from the start of this move that it would not last. I knew I would move on.
So, I planned. I had an exit strategy and I set a date that I would leave. Once I had that date, I saved every penny I could, and when that date came, I left. I headed to Bali.
An International Life of Travel
As luck would have it, Covid-19 had set the same date.
I ended up spending over 5 years in Bali. Nearly 3 of those years were because I was stranded on the island. The start was a little rough with lock downs, but where would you rather be locked down? What was driving me up the wall was that I had made the move, jumped on the plane, and then come to a full stop!
So, when lock downs eased, I made a move. My feet were so itchy I didn’t even hesitate. I jumped on my scooter, rode halfway across the island to the mountains of Munduk, and hiked alone for several days. I just needed to get out.
Now, nearly 5 years later I have seen the entire island. I have visited over 70 waterfalls and seen almost everything that you could want to see. I literally could not get lost on the island if I tried!
But I wanted to keep moving. I wanted to keep exploring. I never intended to spend so much time in one place, and even though it had benefits, I longed to get back on the road.
Bali is wonderful, but once again, it is not my home. I don’t have a home, and if I do, it is the road.
The strange thing about being a nomad is that you are literally happy everywhere. I have spent single nights in places so remote that people haven’t heard of them. I look back on that place with the same nostalgia that I look back on a place I lived for years. Because for that one night, it WAS my home.
I once stayed in a hostel in Japan. It was a great place, located below the ski fields on Hokkaido. I was visiting my daughter that month, as she was working there. The entire time I did nothing but ski and read my book by the fire. It was an idyllic holiday, spent in a hostel, sharing my room with another traveler from Australia. When I look back on that place, that 10 days, I feel the same nostalgia that I do when I look back on any place that I have actually lived.
Because for those 10 days, it was my home. And I was happy.
That’s the life of a traveler. Everywhere is home, and the people that you meet are your family. It is a difficult concept to explain to someone who has not experienced it, but it exists.
Once I was able to travel internationally from Bali, I jumped at the chance. South East Asia became an obsession, and today I can count no less than a dozen occasions that I’ve found myself in Kuala Lumpur. Vietnam is my new favorite place on Earth to explore.
That is, of course, if I don’t count Eastern Europe. I traveled to Turkey not long after the pandemic ended and continued alone into Bulgaria where I fell almost instantly in love with Plovdiv. Bulgaria holds a special place in my heart, and the month that I spent there made it feel like I’d found a new home.
Subsequent travels through Europe over the next few months did nothing to dull the shine of what I’d found in Plovdiv. For a temporary time, I found homes beside lakes in Slovenia, over the canals of Venice and amongst the misty fields of northern England. Plovdiv drew me back later that very same year though, when I had the chance to co-author a guidebook for Lonely Planet – an opportunity I jumped at immediately.
For now, I’m finally back in Australia, working on this blog and figuring out where my next home will be. My apartment here on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland has been great, but my home is on the road. I hear Bali whispering my name again, however it’s the siren call of Vietnam that rings the loudest right now.
If you ever run into me on the road, ask me where home is. It will be an interesting answer, because it always makes me stop and think. Where is my home at the moment?
For now, it is always with my girlfriend, Jo. She has become integral to my life and my plans, and we have travelled Bali, South East Asia and Turkey together, discovering and exploring. I could not imagine moving on without her, so she is coming with me, no matter what.
If she is with me, then I am at home.
Just so long as we keep moving!
IF YOU LOVED THIS ARTICLE, then check out THIS article that tackles the question, “Is Travel a Hobby?”
The results might surprise you…..
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