It’s a sigh not just of relief but also of wonder…
Because what I experience is not just a feeling of coming home… it’s mingled with the feeling you get when traveling and finding yourself in a favorite location overseas…
Because, of course, Paris is only my adopted home. I’m not French, but I am established enough here to feel that it’s all familiar when I return.
I am still a foreigner, though, and I still fully appreciate all the reasons I chose to live in Paris.
If the feeling hits me in the taxi, it’s usually the architecture that hooks me once again. The sheer beauty of this city, its river, and everything it has to offer, the feeling of endless potential… it all sends me into reveries of gratitude.
If it hits me when I’m on an errand, it’s the Parisian lifestyle that puts a goofy smile on my face…
The beauty of being able to walk to everything I need… the feeling of being embraced by my little community, as shopkeeps and café owners who recognize me nod and wave in greeting, asking why they haven’t seen me lately…
Walking by and sniffing the delicious aromas coming from the fromagerie and the boulangerie (and being tempted to stop in for a quick purchase)…
The clinking of silverware from people eating at little tables on the sidewalk, the beautifully presented dishes they tuck into…
Seeing a neighbor walking her kids home from school and stopping for a chat, setting up a picnic date with our families for the following weekend…
(And here I’m not waxing poetic… these are all encounters I have had in the first 24 hours of returning home after past trips.)
I’ve struggled with how to describe this feeling, and the closest I can think to say is that it feels like I’m coming home to vacation.
It’s the best of being at home and the best of being on holiday all at once.
And I think that’s how many happy expats would describe the experience of finding that perfect place to call home.
The feeling hits me like clockwork after every absence, and I am launched into renewed appreciation for my life choices—specifically, those that led me to settle in the City of Light.
The funny thing is, though, that a big part of why I choose to live in Paris is for the ability to leave it.
I love being at the center of Europe, in one of its best-connected hubs, to be able to fly or get a train anywhere on the Continent (or just off its shores) in three hours or less.
With two young daughters, work-related travel has slowed for me in the last year or two. Luckily, though, we’ve become so accustomed to last minute trips and little weekend getaways as a family, that we leave the city at least once a month, exploring spots closer to home and discovering new favorite locations in France.
Bordeaux and all its wine culture… Chantilly, where cups of whipped cream are the main dessert offered… the artist town of Barbizon with its endless forests… glitzy, horse-mad Deauville… the bracing climate of Normandy… the champagne caves of Reims… the salty, seafaring spirit of Marseille…
I could go on and on.
These are just a handful of the places we’ve been spending time lately, and it feels like drops in the ocean—there is so much to discover right at our own doorstep, we don’t need to leave the country to experience a new and completely different culture.
We may not be crossing borders so much lately, but we’ve certainly taken advantage in past years. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia—we’ve been to them all (some many times!) in the six years since we moved from Panama to Paris.
Later this year we’ll be in London, then Morocco… for Christmas, most likely the Alps so my 6-year-old can graduate to the next level of ski school.
I don’t list out my travel history to brag but to demonstrate just how wide open your life can be once you cut the tether with North America.
Few other countries in the world boast the scale, grandeur, and diversity of America or Canada. They can easily keep you occupied with travel—but that comes at larger distances and time investments than what I’ve been talking about.
Once you get beyond their borders, you might be shocked to find how quickly, affordably, and easily you can visit new places (or old favorites).
Many of the trips I took last year or have planned for this year are mere weekends. They are but an hour or two away by train or plane. They cost just a couple hundred round trip.
But how fabulous to be able to visit them—even for short periods—whenever the fancy strikes?
If this sounds like your kind of lifestyle, there’s no better place to base yourself than in a travel hub…
I’ve been speaking to my situation here in Europe (if this is a goal of yours for this region, there’s no better place to be than Paris, London, Barcelona, or Rome, some of the best-connected cities in the world), but if your preference is more towards the Americas, there is no shortage of hubs on that side of the Atlantic…
If you’re looking for more travel and diversity, there’s no better way to bring this to your life than to make a move overseas.
And if you’re looking for feelings of wonder, awe, gratitude, and appreciation in your daily life, I prescribe the same.
Finding your own “vacation-at-home” location, as I’m calling it, is the best way to keep all those feelings in the fore each and every day, without even trying.
Bonne route,
