Three Countries, Eight Cities, and the Strange Feeling of Coming Home

On travel, life changes, and coming home from peak experience after peak experience.

I was telling a friend this morning that no matter how wonderful a trip is, no matter how much I enjoy myself while I am away, and no matter how much I genuinely love the life that is waiting for me when I return home, there has been a strange feeling that settles in during the first few days afterward, a palpable heaviness that I have not quite been able to explain this last year of travel, and that it seems to arrive regardless of whether the trip lasted four days or three weeks, whether it was relaxing or exhausting, or whether I was returning from a faraway country or simply another state.

Maybe it is the lack of sleep that inevitably comes from crossing oceans and time zones, maybe it is the way the body struggles to reconcile sunrise and sunset after days spent moving through airports and airplanes, maybe it is the pile of responsibilities that impatiently accumulates while I am away, or maybe it is something much more complex than any of those things, because I am beginning to suspect that what I am actually feeling is life shifting a bit.

Over the past two weeks I crossed three countries, moved through at least eight cities, rode six airplanes, took two trains, rented a car and a scooter, spent a day on a boat beneath the cliffs of Capri, wandered through Florence, E-biked the winding roads of Umbria, stood in places that have existed for centuries before I arrived and will continue to exist long after I am gone, and eventually made my way back through Iceland and across twelve time zones before landing at home again.

For the last year I have been booking out month after month of travel.

Two weeks in Italy, a short return to Iceland, my retreat in Peru, a few days in Santa Monica, a writer’s retreat in Alaska, and two new cities in Mexico, a country I keep returning to. I’ve been traveling nearly every month since March of ‘25, and anyone who knows their geography knows that nothing is close to Hawaii, so when you travel, you are typically going FAR, and getting back in under a week is nearly impossible.

More and more I am being called off the island, a trend that has only been accelerating over the last year as my calendar fills with trips, retreats, podcast filming/recording excursions, visits to friends/family, and opportunities that seem to pull me farther and farther from the middle of the Pacific, while simultaneously making me more aware of just how geographically isolated Hawaii really is.

The reality is that every destination feels a little farther from here than it used to. The flights in any direction are thousands of miles long just to a larger airport. The recovery time is harder on my body as a result of cumulative hours in the air. The jet lag is often disproportionate to the trip.

And somewhere between crossing oceans and adjusting to time zones and spending increasing amounts of time on the mainland, I have found myself sitting with a few questions that feel larger than travel itself.

Questions about where I feel most energized. Questions about where I feel most connected. Questions about what I am being called to build next. And perhaps most importantly, questions about whether the things that once felt like the entirety of the dream are meant to remain the entirety of the dream forever.

The older I get the more I realize that purpose is not a fixed destination that we arrive at once and then spend the rest of our lives carrying out, but rather a conversation that continues evolving as we do, with different seasons of life calling different parts of us forward and asking different things of our time, attention, energy, and imagination.

There have been several seasons now when nearly all of my energy was directed toward creating a life in Hawaii, toward building a home from raw land, establishing roots, learning how to care for a property and a community, and creating a version of stability that I had never experienced before.

Those seasons have given me more than I can adequately express.

And yet lately I have noticed parts of myself waking up that seem interested in something more expansive. I have felt myself come out of survival mode, and start dreaming bigger. I remember when I used to think about having a mountain home and a beach home idealistically, but now wonder if my outlandish dreams just may be well within reach.

I have noticed how energized I feel spending time in Colorado, how much I enjoy the dry air and crisp mornings and mountain towns, how much possibility I feel when I imagine longer stretches of time exploring parts of the sunniest state that are still unfamiliar to me, and how much I have come to value the friendships that are quietly taking shape there.

At the same time, I have also become aware of changes happening closer to home.

Some friendships on Maui have deepened into something extraordinary, while others have naturally drifted apart or moved away altogether, and there is something both beautiful and bittersweet about realizing that after seven years in one place I am finally experiencing the kind of depth and continuity in relationships that only time can create.

What makes this season feel unique is that I do not feel torn between those realities. I do not feel that one is right and the other is wrong. I do not feel that I need to choose between being rooted and continuing to explore.

I simply feel aware that the version of myself who arrived in Hawaii seven years ago is not the same version of myself writing these words today, and that perhaps the strange feeling I experience when I return home from traveling has less to do with the places I am visiting and more to do with the quiet realization that I am still learning, changing, evolving, and growing.

Perhaps what I am feeling is not the end of anticipation.

Perhaps it is the beginning of a new chapter whose shape I cannot yet fully see.

With love,

H