The year-end season of listicles is drawing to a close: all the “Best […] of 2014” articles have been written and published and some even read. We showcased our own best posts since the beginning of the blog on Thanksgiving, so on this last day of the year, we decided to do something a little different.
In our Two Toothbrushes interview series we feature fellow traveling couples, asking them the same battery of questions about traveling and, yes, about home. Since the series launched, in March 2014, we’ve published 23 interviews, gathering as many definitions of home. We plan to continue the series in 2015 (January is already scheduled). Because our own blog is based on the idea that “home is where your toothbrush is,” we decided to close the year with our fellow couple travelers/bloggers’ respective definitions of home. (Note that we edited all the definitions for length and clarity and the italicized blog names link to the interviews where you can find links to the blogs themselves.)
Enjoy and have the most excellent 2015, wherever your toothbrush may be!
- Carmel & Shawn Montgomery of The Journey Itself: “Home is more of a state of mind to us, it’s really more about the love we receive from our families and friends than a physical place.”
- Ivana Grešlíková & Gianni Bianchini of Nomad Is Beautiful: “Home is any place that we have the keys to open the door. When we are on the road, we more often describe places not as a ‘home’ but places that we love and places that we don’t like that much.”
- Emily Sabo & Ewan Pakarnyk of What Are You and Ewan Doing?: “Our definition of home doesn’t hinge on a ‘one and only place.’ For us it is really about being together, with the ‘place’ being more of how we feel—that we are happy and doing what we love. It is really about happiness and making the most of things.”
- Megan & Mike Jerrard of Mapping Megan: “Home for us is anywhere and everywhere in the world. So long as we’re together it doesn’t matter where we are physically located. We find ourselves very at home on the road. The world [is] our home.”
- Jeremy & Angie Jones of Living the Dream RTW: “[Home is] where our family and friends live and an accommodation type that feels like something we would like to purchase ourselves.”
- Desiree Golen & Jordan Wicht of Project Atticus: “[Home is] this planet, a pale blue dot on the scale of the universe.”
- Kaisa & Arno of Reconnect Discover: “Home for us is a state of mind. It is not a location, but more a feeling. It’s about well-being and about feeling comfortable with what you do, and who you do it with. We find home in each other, and we are in peace with who we are and where we are.”
- Amy & Andrew Blyth of Our Big Fat Travel Adventure: “Home is wherever we are together and happy.”
- Charli Moore & Benjamin Jones of Wanderlusters: “Home is where we make it. It’s wherever we lay our head that night. Home is a feeling. A mix of happiness and contentment.”
- Stephenie Harrison & Tony Kuehn of 20 Years Hence: “For us, the concept of home is probably best summarized by the Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros song of the same name: ‘Home is wherever I’m with you.’ (By which we mean, each other!)”
- Dalene & Peter Heck of Hecktic Travels: “Home is each other. We can feel comfortable wherever we are in the world, as long as we are together.”
- Chris & Laura Backe of One Weird Globe: “It’s where the Wi-Fi connects automatically. It’s where we go after traveling. It’s where the laptop cooling fan is waiting.”
- Ania Mochnacka & Jon Barrett of Hitchhikers Handbook: “Our definition of home is Europe. We feel we understand Europe, its traditions and customs, and we are fluent in three European languages, which certainly makes us feel at home.”
- Meg & Tony Rulli of Landing Standing: “Home is wherever we are together. The word ‘home’ is relative and it really is what you make of it. For us, home is wherever we can feel comfortable and create memories. We both are self-employed and work remotely so home is also wherever fast wifi is!”
- Sam Wood & Zab Scoon of Indefinite Adventure: “[Home is] wherever we both are and look forward to going back to. I once read a quote about this that I really like though: ‘Home is where the wifi connects automatically!'”
- Zara Quiroga & Ashray Baruah of Backpack Me: “Home is anywhere we can be together. That makes the entire world home for us!”
- Tamara Muñoz & Donny Loeber of TurtlesTravel: “Home for us involves a feeling of belonging, and we have come to feel that the world is our home. We feel at home in the energetic chaos of Southeast Asia; we are at home with the music, color, and family ties we feel in South America; we are at home, too, with the orderliness and structure of Japan. Home for us is a constantly shifting, nebulous place, but we also feel that wherever we are together we’re home.”
- Simone Findlay & Jason Pleasants of JS Living the Dream: “[Home] is wherever we currently are.”
- John & Heather Widmer of Roaming Around the World: “Home has become wherever we are sleeping that night.”
- Dale Davies & Franca Calabretta of AngloItalian Follow Us: “Home is wherever we’re alone together.”
- Margherita Ragg & Nicholas Burns of The Crowded Planet: “We have always associated the idea of home with people, rather than a place.”
- Karolyna & Patryk Klesta of KarolynaPatrik: “Home is where we are. As long as we are together, we feel like home everywhere.”
- Armando Constantino & Mel Candea of Westfalia Digital Nomads: “Home is where we park [our camper van].”
Interesting to see these all together. There’s certainly some common themes. But perhaps my favorite is “It’s where the Wi-Fi connects automatically.” That really made me laugh yet its pretty dead-on.
Cheers and happy New Year to all you couple travel bloggers!
Thanks, John, and best wishes for 2015 to you and yours as well. The wifi definition pretty much defines the digital-nomad lifestyle, doesn’t it?
So cool to see all these definitions lined up!! Also cool that there are such strong common themes–like, home is wherever we’re together.
Indeed, travelers tend to define home in terms of people they (we) love.
Wherever one another is. True and ridiculously soppy, but it is what it is.
That just about sums it up, Paula.
Hi Peter,
Nice compilation 🙂
We usually say that home is where we are happy.
Happy 2015!!!!
Thanks, Robson. That’s a good one.
I’ve loved reading this series and especially love having the answers to ‘what is home’ all on one page. I am sure if we re-answered many of the series’ questions they would be different now that we are through more of our travels and back re-establishing ourselves in North America. Thanks again for including us!
Thanks, Emily. We’ll be sure to run the 2015 edition at the end of the year. It would be interesting to see how your replies changed after your return! Why don’t you resubmit one of these days?
After more than a year of traveling and living in different parts of the world, I understand it very well, how little I need. And in this time I have also “learned” to feel like at home very quickly and in different places. Sometimes a rented appartment or hotel room is needed for it, sometimes just a bed is enough. I don’t know how to define what is home for me now, but I can feel it.