What 9 Years of Travel Taught Me: About Freedom, Love and Not Settling Down
- The Tipsy Vagabond
- Aug 4
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 1
After nearly a decade of living out of a backpack, building love in foreign cities, getting lost and found again, and learning how to come home to myself here’s what this life actually looks like.
Not just the passport stamps or the highlight reel.
Not just hostel friendships and rooftop sunsets.
The Soul-Deep Shifts From Travel And Change.
The quiet knowing.
The parts of you that can’t go back, even if you wanted to.
I’ve been a solo female traveler for nine years now.
Sometimes fast and chaotic.
Sometimes slow and tender.
I’ve stayed in more places than I can count.
Missed holidays, weddings. Crashed new ones on the other side of the world.
Sat alone in airports, wondering if I was doing it all wrong.
I’ve built whole lives in cities I didn’t even know existed the year before.
Fell in love across borders.
Loved someone deeply enough to share the version of me nobody else ever got to see.
And for a while, I thought I’d be ready to settle.
That maybe, after all the miles, I’d want to stay somewhere longer than a season.
When Home Doesn't Fit Anymore
But after three months back home, one thing’s become clear:
This can’t be all of it. Not for me.
People expect me to either return to who I was before all this—or finally “do life right.”
But I’m not someone who can shrink anymore.
I’ve lived too fully.
Loved too deeply.
Stretched too far to unlearn the shape of my own freedom.
I Crave Things That Sound Like Contradictions:
Connection and solitude
A home and a one-way ticket
A partner and room to fly
A slower life and one that still moves
Every time I hug my family goodbye not knowing how big my nephew will grow, what milestones I’ll miss, I question everything.
How can I love them so much, and still feel most alive in a city that doesn’t know my name?
Where I can arrive quietly, let it change me, and leave more myself than ever before?
Freedom After Australia
Leaving Australia was another turning point.
I’d planned to stay at least another year.
There was more to see, more to experience.
But when my relationship ended, so did that chapter.
It was the first time I feared that maybe… travel was becoming an escape.
When my partner said goodbye before sunrise, the heartbreak in that car and every moment of the 24 hours home cracked something open.
I questioned everything:
Was I wasting time?
Had I chosen a life that couldn’t hold me anymore?
In the weeks that followed, I tried to make myself fit again.
Back in my hometown.
Back in a life that still feels familiar and offers me the comfort of family and a safe place to land, even though I've changed.
But maybe it’s not that I don’t fit here.
Maybe it’s that I’m still not done becoming.
Because this lifestyle, the digital nomad rhythm of finding home everywhere and nowhere has shaped me into the woman I needed when I was younger.
It’s given me tools I never could’ve found standing still.
It’s taught me who I am without anyone else defining it.
Why I'm Still Choosing This Life
Travel is hard.
It breaks you.
It demands constant adaptation. It leaves you longing for stability, even as you ache for the unknown.
It’s heartbreak, homesickness, and exhaustion.
It’s walking through life with a suitcase and a tender heart.
But it’s also healing.
It’s becoming.
It’s living wide open.
Even after the grief, the wrong turns, the lost friendships I still crave the road.
Because I was never meant to live caged.
When I talk about freedom now, it’s different.
It’s not the thrill of the next flight.
It’s the peace of knowing I can rest.
Stay.
And still choose to move again when I’m ready.
I’ve lived in over 20 rooms across three continents.
Each one filled with weird thrift-store treasures, chaotic coliving, unforgettable roommates, and the kind of beauty you can’t plan.
But you can’t replace your people.
The dog waiting at the window.
Your parents hug that undoes you after months apart.
Your nieces and nephews getting taller.
Old friends remembering the girl you were before you became brave.
I carry them all with me—in the stories I tell, the decisions I make, the quiet moments between adventures.
Not everyone understands this life.
But I do.
And I’m still choosing it.
Reflection Prompts + My Answers
What does ‘home’ mean to me right now? Has it changed over the years?
It’s always been Tampa where I grew up, where everything was familiar and waiting.
But at some point, home became a person… and it wasn’t me. Now I’m trying to define it again. I came back to catch my breath, to rebuild.
Being here means I get to see my nephew and nieces grow, hug my parents on random afternoons, and have a safe place to land. Even if I know my story will take me elsewhere again.
I'm craving more quiet than I can find here right now, a slower rhythm and space to hear myself think.
Where do I feel most like myself? Is it a place, a rhythm, a type of connection?
Even in the comfort of home, I’m reminded that my happiest moments often happen somewhere new — not because home is lacking, but because movement is part of who I am.
In a new place, early in the morning. When the streets are still quiet. When I don’t know what the day will hold. Wandering through ancient places rebuilt again and again. Not knowing what comes next. Just open to it all.
What does freedom look like in this season of life?
Honestly, I don’t have much right now. I’m rebuilding. Creating a foundation strong enough to carry what’s next. This is intentional living. This is the work before the wings.
Where have I tried to shrink myself to be understood or accepted?
I’ve connected with so many people but been seen by so few. It’s easy to perform. To shape-shift. But I’m done doing that. How can I find the people who truly see me if I’m not being honest about who I am?
What kind of partner would honor my desire for both rootedness and flight?
I have no idea. I had something beautiful once. But I need someone who can see a flower and not want to pluck it.
But am I a flower or an inferno? Or both?
If I built my own version of seasonal living—where would I go first?
An island somewhere cheap. A little studio. Writing and exploring. Renting long enough to feel a rhythm. Living slow. Working while I go. Trusting myself again.
What lessons am I carrying from the last chapter?
I let too many other voices shape mine —family, friends, lovers, other travelers on similar paths. They weren’t wrong for having opinions. But I was wrong for losing mine. I’m taking it back now.
Final Thought
If any of this resonates, I’d love to stay connected.
Subscribe below & soon I’ll be offering one-on-one support, custom travel planning calls, and behind-the-scenes guidance for anyone ready to build their own version of a freedom-filled life.
Because we don’t have to settle.
We get to choose.
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