Everything Is Better At Home

Last week, I traveled via plane for the first time since COVID-19 hit our globe. It was time. I had avoided it for so long, mostly just because I didn’t want to deal with the extra hassle I assumed COVID had brought to travel. But I wanted to go to a work conference in Denver, and when my company supported it and said they would pay for me to go, I decided to go for it. I’m so glad that I went, but upon reflection after returning, I keep coming back to this whispering feeling: everything is better at home.

I’m guessing this is a pretty unpopular opinion, especially in the personal finance world where many folks’ main goal is to travel more, but I hope you’ll give this post a chance.

Don’t get me wrong: I used to LOVE to travel. My mom instilled in me my love for travel from a young age. She was in the Air Force Reserves when I was growing up (I must brag that my badass mama was promoted to Colonel when I was in high school), and because of this, she had to travel a lot. As my brother and I got older, she would often take one of us with her on her trips. I remember that when we were younger, my brother would go with her most of the time. I was a jock and a total goody two-shoes (I only missed one day of high school because I was in the hospital), and so I NEVER wanted to miss school to travel with my mom. But as I got older, in college and then in graduate school, I started to travel with her more. And I loved it.

Now that I’m an adult, I know how privileged I was to travel so much at a young age, with all expenses paid for by my mom. But I thank her for it to this day. Now that I know how much things cost, and how I didn’t have to give a second thought to travel costs when my mom was footing the bill, I’m super appreciative of all she spent on me to be able to travel with her. I love being able to pay it back and treat her to things now too, now that she’s retired, and this is something important for me to continue to do as I glide along on my slow journey to financial independence (FI).

Likely because of all the travel I did with my mom, I ended up loving to travel on my own too. I started traveling alone at the end of college when I went on graduate school tours and interviews. I remember the empowering feeling of traveling alone for the first time. Navigating the airports and public transportation on my own. Checking in to hotels. Using their business centers to check in for my flights and print my boarding tickets. And this was before I even had a smart phone (although I had a cell phone, I was one of the last of my peers to get a smart phone).

When I had my fancy professor job, the job I thought was my dream job, I had an opportunity to go to Hawaii all by myself to work in an anatomy lab and create 3D animated videos to bring back as a teaching tool I could use in my classrooms. Friends, family, and peers thought I was crazy for going on my own for a whole week. Except for my mom. She was and has always been my biggest advocate.

*Brief tangent: On my first flight of this trip I took last week, I had a layover in Philadelphia, and I met a woman also from Vermont who had been on the same flight and was traveling to the same place. We got to chatting, and she couldn’t believe that I would go away for a whole week without my husband. “He’s ok with you being away for that long?!” she asked me incredulously. Sigh. The next day, Mr. Dink told me that on his weekly phone chat with his dad, after he had told him what I was up to, his dad asked if our marriage was ok. I almost choked on my coffee. I cannot to this day believe that women still have to deal with this crap, but that’s a topic for a whole other post.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Traveling for the first time in 3 years, with the pandemic still going on (although you wouldn’t know it when actually traveling), didn’t end up being nearly as bad as I thought. I went about my own business, made my own decisions about masking in a sea of unmasked faces, and still was able to navigate the world like a champ. I didn’t have anxiety like I thought I would. I even had *gasp* FUN travelling again. Everything went fine.

But something gnawed at me on my way home. Even though everything was going “fine”, I realized that I don’t think I like to travel as much as I used to.

What changed?

The main thing that has changed for me since the last time I traveled for pure pleasure is that I have a home now. A home as a real adult person.

Sure, I’ve lived in houses before. Growing up, I lived in the same house from when I was 7 years old all the way to when I left for college. In graduate school, I had apartments and roommates that I loved. When I got the dream job, I rented a townhouse that felt the most like home of any of the places I lived as an adult. But that tightness in my throat I felt every time I left my childhood home after a visit to my parents? That “homesick” feeling? I had never felt that in my adult life.

Now, I have more than a house. I have a home. And in that home, I have a life partner who is also my best friend and lover. Together, we have made our house our home. We take care of it, it takes care of us, and we take care of each other. We have a vibrant community that we are part of, know, and love. We have made our house, and our community, our home.

We have our routines and our comforts. We love to cook meals in our kitchen rather than go out. We have a bed that we literally have dreams about when we are away. We sleep better at home. We eat better at home. We are at peace at home.

Not only have we created a live we don’t need to escape from, we have also created a home we don’t need a vacation from.

But of course, even though we don’t need vacations, we still love to get out and explore. We still value seeing the beauty of the world and experiencing new places and cultures.

Why the bus dream works for us

The reason why we love the bus idea so much (converting a school bus into a living space on wheels) is that we can create a home away from home. We can take our home with us wherever we go.

By designing the bus to suite our needs, we can travel comfortably. We can be intentional with our bus build. We can take all the values, all the aspects that are really important to us about our home, and create them on the bus as well.

Plus, we really don’t like flying. And, we don’t have a strong desire to travel internationally, with the exception of a few places (more on that below). We feel there are so many beautiful places to see right here in our own country, and the bus works perfectly for that type of exploration.

Exceptions

Of course, even knowing and accepting this truth that we don’t love to travel, and that we prefer being at home to traveling, there of course are exceptions.

Visiting friends and family

In addition to traveling for work, part of my trip was also spent visiting my accountability partner (which was by far the best part of the trip).

As someone who loves being at home, this was a fabulous way to spend part of my trip, because I was still spending my time in a home. This may not work for everyone, and maybe would create more stress/apprehension because you see yourself more as a guest, but it worked incredibly well with my friend. She took the time to ask me some of the comforts I appreciate at home, like what foods I wanted to have on hand for breakfast and snacks, that really made a difference in feeling the “home away from home” feeling.

As a personal finance blog, we also can’t ignore the fact that travel costs money. Since I don’t travel much anymore, I don’t partake much in the travel hacking or travel rewards culture, and so most of my travel spending comes straight out of my pocket. But, part of my why for FI is spending more time with friends, and if this means travel (like in this case where my friend lives far away, in North Carolina), I’m here for it. I’m all for spending on things that bring me joy and are in alignment with my values, so it was a no brainer to spend the money on seeing my friend.

We had just the best time, and I’m so glad I spent the money on visiting. This is the whole point, for me, of my financial independence journey: to be able to spend on things that spark joy and bring about true happiness.

Very similar to friends, we also value spending money when it comes to family. Mr. Dink’s dad lives in Florida, and so we have no problem spending money and traveling if it means a visit to spend time with his dad.

Bucket list trips

Bucket list trips are, for us, another travel exception. Mr. Dink and I would of course be lying if we said we didn’t have places we want to see that we can only get to via plane.

Given the looming changes in our Earth we are facing due to climate change, and knowing that some of the beautiful places in the world are fleeting, I had a recent idea of each coming up with 3 bucket list locations that we will try to travel to within the next 5-10 years. Since we’re in no rush to get our bus, it feels good to try to prioritize international travel while we are still in our high-earning years, but yet on a slower path to FI.

Closing thoughts

I know that this is likely an unpopular opinion, that everything is better at home, as most people prioritize traveling or vacationing in their lives and budgets. I also know that my opinion that everything is better at home comes from a place of immense privilege. Not everyone has the luxury of having a safe place to call home, or even a roof over their heads at all.

Not everyone has had a chance to build their house anew in a way that suits their needs. After our house fire, we were blessed to have the insurance money to rebuild and create basically a brand new interior space. We sometimes feel guilt around that, when people who don’t know what else to say when they come inside instead say something along the lines of “you are so lucky!” What we do know is that we’d trade it all in a heart beat, we’d go back to our pre-fire fixer-upper, if we could have our beloved dog back and avoid the devastation caused during that time in our lives. Life is a dumpster fire sometimes, and I like to think we’re all just doing the best we can.

You may not think that everything is better at home. And that’s totally ok. I honestly wish I wanted to travel more, but I don’t. And that’s ok too. What I do hope this post might inspire, especially if you are a frequent traveler, is how you can find small ways to make your home more enticing, and less like a place you need to escape from. This may help not only your wallets but also our planet. Maybe you splurge on a new mattress you love. Maybe you save up to remodel a bathroom to make a space you love, where you can take baths in a tub that actually fits you (in my case). Maybe you put in a raised bed, even if you have the tiniest of yards, where you can grow even just a few plants that bring health and happiness. What would make home feel more like a vacation for you?

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What do you think? Are you a world traveler, or more of a home body? Or somewhere in between? Let me know your thoughts in the comments; I’d love to hear from you!