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I grew up with no real sense of "home." I think probably because of that, traveling was never exciting for me. I did it. I spent months bouncing around various places, but it didn't feel like anything unusual to me. Each was just one more new place.
It wasn't until I turned 30 and abruptly made a decision to pick somewhere and stay there that I found the kind of satisfaction it seems like most people get from traveling. It's not challenging for me to adapt to new situations and experiences. It's challenging for me to navigate the depth of experience of the same people and the same places, day in and day out. It's especially challenging for me to face the depth of myself that I have encountered since deciding to put down roots.
It's a lot less glamorous to invest my time into trying to understand and solve local problems with local people than it would be to create highlight reels of exotic locations, but I feel like I'm growing more this way than I would otherwise.
It makes me think whichever type of experience you didn't grow up with might be the challenge you need as an adult. If you grew up with all the challenges of a small town people rarely leave and where everybody knows you, maybe you need the challenge of new places where nothing is familiar and you have to start all your encounters from scratch.
But if you didn't "belong" anywhere as a kid, maybe what you need to develop in adulthood is the opposite.
A thought-provoking comment; thanks for sharing it.
There is a parallel with personal relationships. Some people churn through relationship after relationship, always looking for a refresh on the exciting feeling of being with someone new and falling in love (or something like it).
Others find a person and settle down into a long term relationship and are happy with it. Sure, the thrill of a new relationship goes away pretty quickly, but if you are lucky enough to find the right person, that is OK. As the relationship goes on, that shared history builds into its own beautiful thing. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I've thought about it this way. Studies show how unreliable memory is (see the Challenger disaster memory study [1]), and if a memory is only in my head, I can't be sure it happened that way, and ignoring that issue, it feels kind of like knowing a joke that I can't share with anyone. But with a long-term relationship, all those trivial things of your life are shared with someone else who gets the references and jokes and callbacks, and it makes it more real; it confirms that I really did live that memory, and you get more value out of it than if it is lives only in your own head. This might not make sense to younger people, but at 60 it is becoming relevant to me.
Also, please don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying settle down for the sake of settling down. If you haven't found the right person, keep looking for them.
[1] https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0128/Where-were-you-w...
I've started my adult life with a conscious decision that I'd start my travels by visiting things close to home; my own province and my own country. There's so much beauty in Québec that most people don't know about: white sand beaches, breathtaking mountain ranges, quaint little villages, bustling downtowns, etc. At the height of the pandemic, we were in Tadoussac and my daughters were looking at a starfish in a tidal pool, and we heard someone say "I didn't know we had that in Québec".
Since then, I've traveled a bit further, but always with "slow" transportation: First by car, but more recently on my sailboat. Last year we went to the Bahamas via Nova Scotia and the US East coast, and it only made me appreciate home even more. I never realized how much I loved winter until I skipped one!
But yeah, picking a spot to live is an important step; one which I took at about 25. I'm now slowly realizing that all my interests (sailing, snowboarding) would probably be better served somewhere else, but I don't really want to start over. I live in a (very) small town where we all know each other, but it's very welcoming and there's a lot of "immigrants", so you don't have to have been born there to integrate.
Same here. I moved around a lot as a kid. New countries, new cities, new guardians. As an adult I just don't get satisfaction out of traveling. I have that same feeling of "just another place" when I travel.
I also really relate to that feeling of never belonging anywhere. It was only recently I realized how damaging that was. I never really invested in relationships with people because I always had the unconscious thought that they would be gone tomorrow. I'm trying to work on that now.
I also feel like I’m not from any place in particular but I’m now at a point where I’d like to settle.
I’ve moved countries a lot, my immediate family is all over the place and also moved quite a bit.
So how do you pick a place and country to live? Because all of Europe is an option, I’m lucky but also don’t know where (and how) to pick.
Could you share the insights if any you got from your experience settling someplace?
Similar path, similar conclusion here. I appreciate you verbalizing your thoughts.
Thanks for sharing this.
I'm curious – how did you decide where to put down roots, after all that travel? Someplace you visited and liked? A relationship or job?
Perhaps different but connected - in my mid-30s I realized that I had "maxed out" travel. I was going to 20+ countries a year between work and pleasure and was super-confident that you can drop me anywhere in the world and I'll figure it out.
In contrast, I realized that I didn't have a ton of experience "staying." Naively, settling down, marrying, having kids, buying a house sounds "boring" compared to picking up and going to Senegal on a whim, but at this point of my life the boring was much more of the adventure and unknown than the whirlwind.
Looking back on it, I am definitely growing and learning much more from being a husband, a dad, a homeowner, neighbor, etc than I would from going on another 20 trips.
Its a different experience in the UK where trespass laws are so different. Here in the land of the free, where we value property rights over freedom of motion, we are restricted to explore only a fraction of the land around us. One man's freedom is another man's bonds.
In the US we also have the largest park system that is quite cheap/free. Not every area is covered with parks, but there are enough green spaces within a short distance (less than 1 hour) that exploring should be possible. Further, a lot of people will let you go on their land if you ask them and are polite about your time on their land. Regardless- I agree that we do not have it as fun as they do in the UK and some other areas that treat land like they do.
Roughly 40% of the United States is public land and there are national parks larger than some European contries. Sure, it's not freedom to roam, but you still have access to significantly more public land living in the United States than you would living in the UK.
For those Americans among us, there is an interesting short Patagonia adventure film about this in Scotland called "Right to Roam."
Depends on where you live. There are huge swaths of public land in the US where anyone is allowed to hike, explore, camp, hunt, or just shoot guns into the dirt. There are also many State and National parks which are cheap or free to visit.
But yes, once a private entity owns the land in the US you'll need permission to do anything.
Information about "freedom to roam" in different countries and regions.
I don't fully understand this idea. In the UK I can just point in a direction and walk unrestricted anywhere i want? Through peoples farms, yards, castle grounds, etc?
Unfortunately in my area of the USA south, there simply isn't much free land to explore. We have contained city parks and a few state parks. Less than 2% of all land in state. Everything else is either developed or privately owned.
"I studied my map for a while and found what appeared to be its most boring grid square: no roads, houses or rivers, just a single footpath, one pond and the merest flutter of a lonely contour line. Here, it seemed, was nothing at all, neatly outlined within crisp blue lines."
Near me that boring grid would almost certainly be fenced off. Untouchable.
Your mileage may vary, but my experience in the South was that most people (especially people with a few to many acres) don't care if you use their land if you ask. I've hunted or fished on a few strangers' land. I've used land I didn't own without asking, but did live in the neighborhood and the woods were largely considered communal if people weren't jackasses.
A lot of people own land because they want access to it, not because they want to deny everyone else access. Just go up to the nearest house and ask if you can walk through their land, or if they know who owns it so you can ask. People are generally nice about it.
You can also largely ignore corporate ownership of large swaths of land for stuff like logging or mining. They don't monitor it, and are unlikely to make a big deal of a hiker crossing through if you don't walk directly through the part they're working.
There's a greater conversation about private ownership and access to nature, but asking is a practical workaround in the mean time.
"How come kids don't go outside anymore?"
Then you look outside and it's nothing but 4-lane stroads, fast food places, payday loan/pawn shops, and liquor stores. Where the fuck are the kids meant to go, the local casino?
I thought about the same thing. Trying this in the US would be a recipe for getting shot.
Illegal activity is as American as apple pie. I don't have much free land around me and I have a lot of fun going into abandoned buildings despite it's own set of hazards such as asbestos and mold.
Deep South here as well. This place absolutely sucks for exploring. Dangerous heat, mosquitos galore, "nature trails" often have pictures of hunters on government sites. I need to freaking leave.
It used to be that travel was expensive, difficult, long, and rare.
Traveling 20 to 30 miles was doable, but rarely done, so if you did it you'd find quite a different area.
As travel became more possible (first powered boats, then trains) areas became more similar as people moved about. But it was still quite different to go from New York to Boston, even.
Planes shortened it even more; but the real shortening was mass-market communication - radio and then television, and the complete cultural domination of the United States.
Now I can travel thousands of miles in mere hours, to visit someplace that every year feels more and more like I've not really left home.
You can still experience difference, even in the USA, but you have to work much harder at it now.
I've been doing variations on this for decades. I'm fortunate enough to live in a rural area in the US with open space within walking distance, but I've done it in urban areas too. Some ideas:
- Walk every road and alley in a small town. - Bicycle every unpaved road in an entire county. - Follow every trail in a park. - In an unfamiliar city, try to walk to destinations with minimal map or GPS use. This can occasionally lead to feeling unsafe, so use care. Before ubiquitous GPS, I used to carry a compass everywhere to help with this. - Pick a direction and walk for a fixed amount of time, then come back a different way. I once walked 50 blocks in NYC this way during a business trip.
A friend of mine has spent many years hiking to the top of every publicly accessible peak visible from a hill near his house and has had some wild adventures as a result.
As someone reaching 40 myself, it's funny the author doesn't realize they are just getting older. Not all, but most people, as they age, start to lose that wanderlust that they had in their youth. Like the author I have been on many adventures and across many countries, and I will still do a lot more of it. But as I get older I feel the pull far less than I did when I was younger.
Good observation!
It seems that in your 20s there's an inclination towards inspiration: exploring the world, ideas, and oneself.
However, post-30s, particularly when you've settled down and had children, the focus often shifts to cultivating your surroundings; Integrating the values and insights acquired to foster a more beautiful, safer pleasing home environment and community.
So a next step for the writer would be to step into a more active role, like conservation of some of the parts on his map. I think that would bring even more happiness.
The article mentions buying a custom map for a portion of the UK but then didn't mention the website. For anyone else curious about a custom map for a part of the UK here is the site: https://shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/custom-made/
And, if you're in the US: https://store.usgs.gov/maps
I used to fly all over the world pre covid and that has since come to a halt.
Over the pandemic I started just roadtriping in California and after 3 years of that I realized I could spend the rest of my life just going to new places here.
About 25 years ago, I threw together a program to create my own maps from Google maps. After specifying a rectangular border and level of detail, the software proceeded to fill a directory with small maps that would be stitched together. This technique allowed me to explore my surroundings in a similar manner, and I was amazed at what was to be found. If you're into walking / hiking, it is especially useful.
These days I annotate my maps and keep them on a local device. Perhaps someone could suggest software for personal use that would allow non-programmers to create their own maps.
Highly inspiring article that will get many of us to explore locally no doubt. Another idea to minimize expense and impact on the planet is virtual tourism. Explore via the internet. There are an infinite number of possible tours you can take for free in and on your own time. You can invent a theme, such as following Alistair Humphrey's travels, or Michael Palin's Around the world or Pole to Pole and so on. Lewis and Clark. Captain Cook. Marco Polo. Darwin and The Beagle.
Small discovery is highly underrated. Reminds me of how earlier London taxi license required the "Knowledge" a deep understanding of routes and wayfinders.
It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes:
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
If we promoted less car infrastructure and more spaces to walk exploration would be built in to our lives instead of requiring ….another car trip.
> It showed an area totaling just 20 square kilometers, a tiny place. The map was divided into 400 individual grid squares, outlined in light blue — a single square kilometer each.
He means 20 kms squared, as opposed to 20 square kilometers. The map should be 80cm x 80cm then.
For a smaller scale of this kind of thing if you live in a city, pick up a game like Ingress or Pokemon Go or one of its many offshoots and just walk to the next node. I found loads of really interesting spots like that, like a quiet graveyard just off the city center.
There is also a thing called Geocaching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching) which basically is a world-wide treasure hunt.
I went looking for geocaches around my house when I was youger, and even nowadays when I have to wait for a train for one hour or two in city I've never been, I usually go looking for caches around the train station.
A deacon I know is making it his goal to walk down every street in his city. It takes a surprisingly long time to meet this goal, even in a small town.
At the risk of being part of the problem: gosh that sounds terribly boring.
I’m glad the author finds enjoyment in that kind of adventure but after 10 minutes my brain would be wishing for a mountain bike trail to ride down, a rocky outcrop to climb, or simply some sun and blue sky.
> I’m glad the author finds enjoyment in that kind of adventure
From the author's bio:
"He has bicycled around the world, walked across southern India, rowed across the Atlantic, run six marathons in the Sahara and trekked 1,000 miles through the Empty Quarter. He was named one of National Geographic’s adventurers of the year in 2012."
He was also like you before.
I guess I'm the opposite. I find travel to be highly overrated. If you're going to visit someone, that's one thing. But just to go somewhere and wander around, nah. I don't find any happiness doing that.
The interesting part to me was that the author spent 20+ years traveling around, and started to reduce the distances only "in recent years".
How long will they keep enjoying these distance limited, more local discoveries ? Will they progressively expand back and buy a boat when their kids leave home ? I don't know if people who fundamentaly enjoyed change will be able to fit in a box for the rest of their life.
One of the opening quotes says that one mountain range is enough for a lifetime. You just need to move out of the prairie...
If it was, we'd still live like most humans throughout human history, live and die within a few kilometers of where they were born. As a homebody, single floor plan is enough for a lifetime. For a Hikikomori, a single room. Until it isn't.
I bought his book the other day I kind of liked the idea.
I like this, sometimes a small map is enough for a lifetime. I’ve only seen a small part of the world and it is enough for me
Reminds me of Square Mile Living based on the book Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin/Joe Dominguez.
The further you go, the less you know.
I agree with this, but so few people seem to like it. International travel is such a luxury and costs so much carbon. It's my goto example of something I would outlaw since it doesn't affect me, and there's no "real" reason for it. Of course, my libertarian sensibilities don't let me actually advocate for it, but I think about it when people want to outlaw marijuana, abortion, drinking, cars, guns, or whatever activity people other than themselves want to participate in. It's too easy to see the costs and not the benefits when it's someone else's activity.
But I really do think we'd be better off of more people voluntarily explored around their own home rather than taking far off vacations. Having lived in several countries and traveled to many more in my younger days (yes, I know, I'm a hypocrite), I don't find short travel visits to really help understand other cultures in any meaningful way like people like to claim. Extended visits or living there for several months or years does non-trivially change your perspective, though. As long as the place is substantially different and you make real connections with people.
the pictures clearly don't do the idea justice
one is led to believe visiting electric pylons is the new 'adventure'
unless ...