Coming Home and Leaving Again: What It's Like

I live my life on the road. I didn’t always. I’ve only had two real adult jobs: the military and my security firm. Even so, I’ve lived a life of change. I only had six months between military deployments, a year of graduate school, a few months as a skydiving coach, and two years in an office at the security firm, the longest I had been in one place for a long time. In the midst of all of this, I travelled constantly, often taking a trip once or twice a month (outside of the pandemic). Constant change has always been my comfort zone, but leaving for long-term travel was (and is) different. I wasn’t simply changing jobs or cities; I was changing life at a fundamental level. I literally left an old life behind to begin a new one knowing full well that I would, someday, have to return once again.

Leaving for the First Time

The Great Gallivanting started with just a normal trip to the airport. It was a drive I had made many times. Like many times before, my mom was driving me and my bags to get on a plane out of Texas. I lived in Colorado for a few years, so the drive didn't feel weird to me at all. It didn't register to me that I had a one-way ticket, because, well, I had left on one-way tickets many times before for some reason or another. Getting out of the car and heading inside at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was a normal part of life for me. That this time was different never hit me.

Nor did it hit me when Jo and I landed in Paris. Again, I had been to Paris several times, some for business, some for pleasure, and I loved the city. I knew its metro lines, is major sites, and a few restaurants. I wasn't a Parisian, even at heart, but I felt comfortable travelling its streets. That same sentiment repeated itself as Jo and I changed cities, some foreign and some familiar, boarded planes, and enjoyed cross-country train trips in our first-class cabin. As The Great Gallivanting continued month after month and eventually led directly into the Aficionado Tour, I never once felt like I was missing something back home. In fact, more than anything else, I felt like I had found something on the road. Freedom, a renewed self, burning passions, things I didn't have back in Colorado or even Texas. My weekly calls home were nothing new; they were a routine I practiced for nearly ten years before leaving.

Leaving for the first time, while a wholly abnormal act, felt like nothing more than just another trip, even when I was fifteen months in.

Coming Home

My first return home wasn't some great reunion, truth be told. In fact, I was open with how much I dreaded the thought of returning to my small town and how much just thinking about it actually terrified me. To add to the dread and fear, I had to cut my Aficionado Tour short because of a last-minute wedding. I had just one day to reintegrate back into "normal" life before having to see all the family and friends I hadn't seen in so long. It wasn't an easy re-integration, but over the course of a few months, I eventually hit my stride. Honestly, though, if it wasn't for my mom's dog, it would have been a lot harder. I wasn’t afraid of stability; I was afraid of returning to my old life and losing the part of me I had gained during my travels.

My mom's dog asleep in my lap, a typical scene in the morning when it is just him and me at the house.

After three months, I headed down to Mexico to write my book for a few months. Even though I left Texas, it didn't feel like leaving. It felt like a work trip. I was only gone a few months, and I had gone far longer without returning to Texas when I lived in Colorado or when I was in the military. Plus, I was around friends I had met six months before while in Mexico, and the hostel I lived at always had a friendly atmosphere. I was never without conversation, people to eat dinner with, or drinking buddies (even though I don't drink much). Mexico felt like a continuation of being home, so when I returned to Texas once the book was finished, it was like life never stopped. I didn't need to reintegrate or come out of travel mode, because I was never in travel mode in the first place.

While I was home, normal life returned. I practiced tae kwon do, attended church every Sunday, drank coffee at the coffee shop every morning, and, of course, spent time with my mom's dog. Even though coming home didn't feel like coming home at first, it did eventually feel that way.

Leaving Again

The drive to the airport for the Wayfarer Expedition felt different. Even though it was a drive I had made many times before, this was the first time that I felt a tinge of sadness to be leaving. Once again, I had all of my travel possessions on my back, a notepad of goals and plans, and a positive outlook towards what lay ahead. But I had become closer with my family than I had been in years, maybe even a decade, enjoyed attending church more than I had before leaving two years before, and training at my tae kwon do studio (which I hadn't done in a long, long time) felt amazing, especially with the people I trained with.

Sure, it was nearly impossible to convey to folks in small-town Texas what life on the road is like, and I had no desire to return to an office job nor the national security sphere, but the transition back to travel mode didn't sit right as I sat down at TGI Friday's in Terminal A at the DFW airport. I pushed those feelings aside for the time being. I was headed back to Spain, the land of bullfights, sobremesas, tapas, and fiestas. I genuinely looked forward to meeting up with Andy, who I met the year before at San Fermín, and his girlfriend, Katie, who was attending the fiesta for the first time. But for the first time in three years, I was attending without Jo, and Andy and Katie were only there for seven of the ten days (including the night before's novillada and the opening ceremonies).

Sooner than later, I would be alone again. For the first time in as long as I can remember, that didn't feel good.

Leaving again also meant leaving behind these two, my dad's dogs who can always be found lounging it up on the couches

A Life in Flux, On the Move, and On Pause

This was the life I chose, though. I had fallen into the national security sphere through a series of logical steps and professional interests, but I swore I wouldn't go back when I left. Alone on the bus from Zubiri to Pamplona, however, caused me to serious evaluate the life I am living. I don't regret my decision to transition to travelling and (hopefully) travel writing, but such a life comes with its own costs.

My life now is constantly in flux. I rarely know where I will be sleeping in a week's time, I visit unfamiliar cities every few days, and finding food is a deliberate effort three times a day. Sometimes just getting from one city to the next just thirty kilometres away is an adventure unto itself with no guarantee of success. My cadre of friends rotates as we move in our separate directions after a few days in the same hostel, and along the Camino de Santiago, everyone literally walks away not even fifteen hours after meeting up at the next albergue.

While I move quickly through cities, towns, and countries, sometimes at what feels like breakneck speeds, being on the move is part of the Wayfarer Expedition and the long-term travel experience, especially in Europe. I have exactly ninety days to get what I need out of Europe before I have to leave for another ninety. During the Aficionado Tour, the longest I spent in once place was ten days, and even then, I took two trains a day to commute from Madrid to Albacete for the city's feria taurina. Even when sitting still, life is always on the move.

At the same time, life is on pause. I don't have a career (yet), I'm don't have friends that I run around with regularly, and dating on the road is hard on an easy day. Meanwhile, everyone's life back home moves on. My three-year-old niece didn't recognise me the last time I saw her, because I hadn't seen her but once since before I left on The Great Gallivanting. My brother and his wife have started their own business, my church has undergone major changes and drama, and several friends are on their first or second kids (and marriages, for some). Even though my life is exciting meeting matadors, discovering tombs of the apostles, and riding a motorbike through Vietnam's mountains, life as most people would call it is simultaneously on pause. When I return home, people I outranked in tae kwon do will either be the same rank as me or outrank me, despite my having practiced longer.

Would I trade my life as I know it now? Maybe, but would I trade it for what I had before leaving on The Great Gallivanting? Absolutely not. Uncertain returns and difficult goodbyes are just part of life. Especially one lived out of a backpack.