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Fun facts: Long Bio

Eventually, I did tire of being a full-time nomad. I craved a stable group of friends, regular workouts, a bar that knew my name, a kitchen to cook in, and my own bed. Suddenly, I realized that “home” wasn’t a dirty word. It just felt that way to a young, restless soul for whom adulthood felt eons away. I had come to understand what someone who is just setting out with romantic notions about travel couldn’t: You can burn out. On my first trip abroad, after 18 months, I hit the wall and decided to cut my trip short. Then, years later, in 2013, I decided that being a nomad was no longer the life for me and decided to stop traveling full-time. It was time to grow up, I said. Time to stay put and move on from nomad to… whatever came next. But the allure of the road — and the business of working in travel — pulled me back constantly. As the years went by, I lived between two worlds: one in which I am traveling, longing for home, and another in which I am home, longing to head out again. There were moments where I longed for a clone so I could live in both and satisfy my dual desires. After all, you can’t — and shouldn’t — live solely in one forever. Because travel and home are complementary forces, yin and yang. Without one, you can’t appreciate the other. All travelers hit a wall, that moment when they look around and go, “I’m ready to stay in one place.” When and why that happens is a product of many factors, but I have yet to meet a traveler who doesn’t have that experience. When I started traveling in my twenties, it took me years to feel that. But now, a couple of decades older, it happens after just a month. To handle life, the brain creates mental shortcuts to help it process information. It’s why we tend to drive the same route to work every day — it’s just easier, and it’s why you feel like “you can do it in your sleep.” Because if your brain had to figure out a new route to work every day, it would tire itself out. These routines let us put a lot of life on autopilot, so we have energy for work, people, emotions, thoughts, etc. But when you travel, you are relearning life skills every day. You have no mental shortcuts. It takes a lot of mental energy to figure out your way in the world anew each day, to repack your bag, say good-bye to the person you met yesterday, and head out and try again to navigate unfamiliar lands, languages, and people as if you had never done so before. It tires you out.