I’m excited to go home

Before you New Yorkers get all excited and pull our your couch, let me add a small amendment:

I’m excited to go home — to Sydney.

I didn’t even realize I’d already started to think of Sydney as home; the past two months while I was in Tasmania visiting friends and Thailand for teacher training, I still thought of Sydney as well…Sydney.

But as my time in Vietnam has drawn to a close and I get ready to fly back to Sydney, the thought that comes to mind: I’m excited to go back home.

I’ve been traveling for almost two years, living a nomadic lifestyle. While I’ve stayed in some places for weeks on end, experiencing what it might be like to actually live there and be a local, I’ve always known that I’d be moving on to someplace else, try on a different city, country, culture for size. This is the first time, in a very long time, where I don’t have a “next”, where I don’t have anything planned after Sydney. It feel strange and yet right - this is what I want, right now. To try on Sydney, giving myself permission to follow my instinct and start something new. To test it out and try to build a life here, in this city that resonated with me so deeply when my foot first met the land.

A big part of the feeling of “home” isn’t just the magic and beauty of Sydney, but rather the people who’ve made it feel this way, specifically Zoe and Joe. We met while traveling together throughout southern Africa back in 2023 and built a strong friendship, continuing to invest in it over the months until I first arrived in Australia and and then throughout my travels and trials of this past year. They’ve invited me home literally and figuratively, and there are still some days where I wonder in disbelief at how I got so lucky to meet my friends.

I still find it quite incredible that I’ve met incredible humans while traveling and forged deep relationships in random parts of the world - I think it speaks to the beauty of human connection and the importance of getting curious about the world and the people who make it their home.

Enjoying a game drive in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania - one of our final experiences in Africa together.