There’s a moment, right before I leave again, when everything feels impossibly heavy. My suitcase is zipped, the car is packed, and my to-do list is nearly checked off. From the outside, it might look like excitement. Another trip, another chapter, another adventure. But on the inside, it feels like grief. Because as much as I love the road, as much as I crave the freedom of moving from place to place, I also deeply love the places and people I leave behind.
For me, “home” is layered.
It’s the house I grew up in, the familiar streets of my hometown, and the smell of the seasons shifting in a way only the Midwest can. It’s the laughter around the kitchen table, the long hugs at the door, and the people who have known me long enough to understand what I don’t say out loud. Even as a full-time traveler, becoming someone who thrives in motion, I feel the ache of leaving home every single time.
Full-time travel is often romanticized. And in many ways, it deserves to be. There’s nothing quite like waking up in a new city, wandering streets you’ve never walked before, or finding yourself somewhere you didn’t even know you needed to be. The beauty of discovery is a privilege and a joy I never take for granted.
But behind the Instagram moments and highlight reels, there’s a quieter truth. To say yes to constant exploration, you also say goodbye. Sometimes over and over again. The paradox of a traveler’s heart is that it holds both expansion and loss. With every new adventure comes the weight of leaving something or someone cherished behind.
One of the unexpected gifts of living on the road is how it has deepened my love for home. When you’re away from something, you notice details you once overlooked. I notice the particular way the light hits my childhood backyard in the late afternoon, the rhythm of familiar songs on the local radio station, the comfort of walking into a favorite coffee shop where the barista knows my name.
Travel has given me a sharper lens, a way to see ordinary moments as extraordinary. The Midwest, for example, is more than just a backdrop to my childhood; it’s my first love, the place that shaped me. Each time I return, I feel it differently. I appreciate the steadiness, the familiarity, and the way it always welcomes me back without question.
As much as I miss the places, it’s the people that make leaving hardest. Friends who have turned into family. Family who have turned into anchors. The people who show up for birthdays, for coffee dates, for no reason at all other than to sit together in a shared space.
These people are my home in human form. They’re the ones I think of when I’m thousands of miles away, the ones I call from hotel rooms or Airbnb's just to hear their voices. Saying goodbye to them, again and again, feels like tearing a piece of myself out and tucking it into my carry-on.
What makes it even more complicated is that they support me. They encourage me to go, to keep chasing this dream, to keep exploring. Their love isn’t a tether to hold me back, it’s the wind that lifts me forward. Which makes the leaving softer, but never easy.
It’s taken me a long time to accept that grief is part of the travel lifestyle. Not the kind of grief that stops you in your tracks, but the subtle kind that lives alongside joy. I’ve learned it’s possible to be deeply grateful and deeply sad at the same time. To smile through tears. To say goodbye with a heart full of love and a chest full of ache.
And honestly, I think this is what makes travel so meaningful. If leaving didn’t hurt, it would mean there was nothing worth holding onto. The grief I feel when I leave is proof that I am rooted somewhere, that I belong to people and places that have shaped me. It’s proof that love exists, even across miles and time zones.
The good news is, home doesn’t disappear when I leave. I carry it with me. In recipes that taste like my grandmother’s kitchen. In photos tucked into my journal or notes saved on my phone. In the voices on the other end of late-night calls when the loneliness creeps in.
Travel has taught me that home isn’t one single place or one single group of people. Home is layered, living inside of me, stitched together from everywhere I’ve been and everyone I’ve loved. And the more I travel, the more homes I gather along the way.
So why keep going, if leaving hurts so much? Because for me during this chapter of my life, the road is where I feel most alive. It’s where I connect with parts of myself that only wake up in motion. It’s where I grow, stretch, and learn in ways I never could if I stayed in one place.
Each goodbye clears space for new hellos. Each tear-streaked departure paves the way for unexpected beauty ahead.
Travel isn’t about escaping home, it’s about bringing home with me, wherever I go. There will always be a lump in my throat while saying 'see you soon', a last-minute squeeze in the driveway, the tears that fall for the first hour of each road trip. I’ve come to see that this is the price of living fully and loving deeply enough to miss, yet brave enough to leave.
The love for home and the grief of leaving it aren’t contradictions. They’re proof that I belong in more than one place, that my heart is big enough to hold both comfort and curiosity. As hard as it is to say goodbye, each parting is also a reminder: home isn’t lost when I leave, it travels with me.
So I step onto the road again, carrying the people, the places, and the love that built me. While the world waits ahead with all its wonder, I know I’ll always find my way back to the ones who feel like home.
