CW Room

Travelling abroad and being home are not always different events. The words traveling and home are more often than not antonyms. You’re more likely to say you’re ‘travelling abroad’, and would often resort to saying you’re ‘going back home’.

Travel is often synonymous with adventure, leaving, beginning a new journey. Meanwhile, home is one in the same with the feelings of comfort, happiness and belonging.

These two words usually find themselves on opposite ends of the spectrum, but this sounds to me like a linguistic error. You can sometimes pack your suitcase, hop on Expedia, book yourself a ticket to the most remote country and still find elements in that country that make you feel like home.

The Journey to Home

Home is not just a place. It could be an environment, a smell or a taste that makes you feel like home. Its a feeling, a person or an activity. The cheesy idiom ‘home is where the heart is’ does have some truth to claim.

Home truly is somewhere, something, someone you feel at peace with. It’s not always just a place. In fact, for many, there is no house attached to that feeling at all.

Stick with me for a minute and I’ll explain what this has to do with travel.

Travelling abroad is exploring new places to find enjoyment and learn more about the world and it’s culture. With travel comes the unique skill of understanding the world, it’s diversity and differences.

That said, you also come to see the details that unite us all as human beings.

Exploring is a Universal Habit

Exploring new places may be out of your comfort zone, but you can always find some similarities within other cultures. For example, if you’re Egyptian, you can use your haggling skills in Brazil, Turkey, China, and I bet you a billion other locations too.

If you enjoy a quiet night in, you can find your respite in quiet, clean hotels around the world – just pick a country. Malls, traffic jams and chain stores are universal experiences that you can find anywhere with their own touches of their country’s culture.

The metro system is the pretty much the same in New York City, London or Tokyo. The examples are endless, and I can keep going, but this isn’t really about the connections I’ve drawn. This is about you.

Experiences that remind you of home will be unique to you, your personality and your life. If you feel like a soup in Italy reminds you of your burger from that one Tuesday in 8th grade Canadian school lunch, then you’ve still successfully experienced home abroad. Everyone’s experiences are different, but the feeling of home when you’re abroad is inevitable.

Sometimes even the fact of going out of your comfort zone can bring you peace, and if that’s what floats your boat then that’s what makes you feel at home.

Or if you’re addicted to travel, like me (read Travel Addiction for more on that), then the event of travelling is your comfort zone. That is the exciting part of travel and that is what you look forward to.

A Portion of Travel is a Slice of Home

It all comes down to personal perspective, but any way you slice it, everyone inevitably finds a comfort in some part of travelling abroad.

Whether you travel for culture or thrills, you’re taking some part of home within you. You’re travelling with expectations and you will find yourself resonating with some part of a country that you can barely speak the language of.

If you claim you have no idea what I’m on about, then I dare you to try going to an all inclusive resort in some random part of the world and let me know what you think. I assure you, being lazy and getting pampered are two things every culture does the same. Just don’t forget to get yourself a plug travel adapter before you go!

Home is where the heart is (yes I said it, whatever)

But in all seriousness, some part of travelling around the world will feel like home to you. To me, my ‘home’ staples are public transport, airports and pizza.

I’ve seen others resonate with the smell of tobacco in the air in some countries (don’t smoke or pollute, kids!). It’s different for everyone, but it all comes down to you. What do you think?

Thanks for reading 🙂