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I’m sitting at the coffee shop while trying to push out the remaining two pages of my daily writing practice. I’m distracted by people passing by. I’m observing everything and everyone and wondering about their dreams and their fears. I start reflecting on my own life of perpetual movement, wondering how I’ll ever be able to keep the people in my life.

I’ve been traveling for weeks and at times I get nostalgic for the familiarity of home. I used to have this homecoming ritual around dinner time: walking into my apartment building and trying to take in all the cooking smells coming from the other apartments. I also enjoyed the comfort and security: a place to set up my sound system in the living room, make real coffee in the morning, and sleep in a bed that resets me.

Then there were the downsides. I was living in an ugly building and my neighbours all seemed strange to me. When walking past each other, they rarely dared to even acknowledge my existence. There was rarely eye contact.

It got even worse during winter, when I started feeling anxious to escape everything and everyone, including my relationships. Because they make me feel place-bound. Those short and dark days were forcing me to spend time indoors. But I’ve never been a homebody. My nervous system is happiest outdoors and as close as possible to nature. Over the years, I’ve noticed how restlessness started creeping in as the days got shorter and shorter.

That’s when I often started fantasizing about having a small cottage somewhere in the countryside with nothing but the mesmerizing sound of the trees and mountains around me. That optimism even drew me to start looking for property in the countryside. But with buying property comes a mortgage and commitments to the bank. I would be losing freedom by putting myself in a rigid situation. I’d built a life with options, and I didn’t want to trade that for a mortgage.

I don’t find pleasure in owning property that ties me down to a mortgage, fluctuating interest rates, and skyrocketing maintenance bills.

It’s not just debt I fear. It’s the heaviness. The stuck feeling. The way ownership makes me less adaptable—less nimble when life fluctuates.

Travel releases me of that weight. In movement, I’m more engaged with life. I can still see the value of a base, a refuge from the expectations and exhaustion of moving around the globe. But above all, home is where my people are. I’m not only returning to something familiar and tangible, but also to something soulful and welcoming.

So why not have both? A secure base and enough freedom left over to keep moving.

Living in a beautiful city comes at a cost—emotionally and financially. And what is a base worth if it doesn’t give me peace of mind?

I’m still learning how to hold both. The human who wants roots, and the adventurer who needs motion. The responsible employee, and the free-spirited writer.

Maybe that’s the real trade. A base gives me depth. Movement gives me aliveness. People make both feel like home.