Elizabeth Waddington
Some people are home-bodies. They like to stay in one place and make deep roots. They miss stability and can’t stand to be constantly on the move.
They there are those other people – the people bitten by the travel bug, who have never felt homesick a day in their life and couldn’t stay still for too long in one place if their lives depended on it. If you, like me, are part of this second group then I am sure you have often been made to feel bad by other, conventional types who see your constant desire to move on as a destructive, even selfish thing.
But never being homesick does not mean you are evil! On the contrary, it is those of us who love to travel who often have the most to teach the world and the most to offer.
Not Being Homesick Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Love
Travel addicts often feel the pull of love – it’s just that that love is not confined to one geographical location. Those of us who are lucky enough to have found another travel addict with whom to share our lives are not the only ones who love deeply.
For some, travel itself is the deepest love, for others, it is the endless search and striving, for others still, their love is so widespread that it embraces all the many and various people and cultures and countries that we come across as we venture around the globe.
We can love home and the people there without being geographically present, as our love is used to ranging far and wide and can swallow the whole world.
Not Being Homesick Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Forge Bonds
Some people see a wandering lifestyle as selfish. They think that travellers are aimless drifters who have failed to form the bonds that hold society together.
On the contrary – travel addicts are often capable of forming stronger bonds than those stable and steady individuals who stay put. Our bonds are stretched out across huge distances but they never break. Strong bonds can be formed with strangers we have only just met, as we recognise our common humanity that can transcend even language and cultural barriers.
We can bond with other travellers in deep ways through shared experience and we can return to our starting point stronger, and with a deeper sense of belonging – a belonging not necessarily to one narrow area, but perhaps to the whole world.
Also Read: 15 Websites Every Budget Traveller Needs to Know About
Not Being Homesick Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Have a Home
Home can be whatever you make it. It can be a place, a person, a feeling. I find it possible to love travel and have a strong pull that brings me home to my small piece of land. While some people will never find a place in which they truly belong, others will find one and yet still keep wandering.
Never let anyone tell you that you are lesser somehow because you love to travel and don’t feel somehow divided and heart-sick when you do. Travel makes you a better person, one ready to face all that life can throw at you with equanimity.
