When my family and I traveled around the world not too long ago, I thought we’d be bit so hard by the travel bug that we’d become one of those “location independent” families. You see them here and there on the internet: families that don’t live anywhere permanent; they stay at a place for awhile, but then they move on.
I admire the tenacity of those families, and love their upstream, unconventional approach to life. But by month three or so of our travels, I knew that life wasn’t for us.
I love vagabonding. I love exploring night markets, slurping noodles at new-to-me restaurants, swimming in obscure water holes I saw on Instagram. My favorite way of finding out what to do in a city is to ask a friendly local, “What should I do today?”
I love exploring this great, green earth and meeting her inhabitants.
But? I also love being at home. I love my favorite chair, my favorite mug, and being surrounded by books so familiar they feel like old friends. I love using my favorite huge towel when we go to the lake. I love going to church every week with familiar people. I love my blender, my pillow, and more recently, my pets.
Our travels taught me that both wanderlust and homebody-ness can dwell in the same body. Even though they feel like a paradox, they can actually co-exist. Quite nicely, in fact—one spurs the other on to deeper passion. And that actually makes me more fully human, more fully me.
I’m thrilled and humbled to share with you my next book that explores this topic. It’s called At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe:
This book is a memoir, and it’s written for both you, the backpacking traveler and you, the armchair traveler. You can take it on your next long-haul flight, and you can tuck it in your swim bag to read as you watch your kids splash at the lake.
This book celebrates travel. And it celebrates home. And it celebrates the beautiful paradox that we can equally love both.
At Home is an invitation for you to travel with me and my family for that year. Come wander the world with me and save yourself the expense of a plane ticket and the headache of jet lag.
Just for fun, I’ve created a silly internet-ubiquitous quiz for you. Go take it, then tell me here in the comments which country you got. And an easy, somewhat silly way to support this book? Share your quiz results on Facebook or Twitter.
Here are gifts I’ve created for you as a thanks for pre-ordering At Home:
- A paperback travel journal to help you brainstorm the “other stuff” before traveling (emotions, spiritual health, and the like)
- An instantly downloadable chapter of At Home, so you can start reading immediately
- Printable art handcrafted by Connie Gabbert, who created the book’s cover (and AoS’s logo!)
And for those of you in book clubs, if you order five or more copies at once, we’ll also send you a Book Club Guide, created by me, with discussion questions, fun recipes to try for your gathering, and a link to a playlist for good background music. (If you order ten or more copies, for the first five of you that submit I’ll Skype in to your gathering and say hi).
I’m so grateful to share this experience with you. I wrote At Home in the World with you in mind—to encourage you to walk out your front door, and to give you peace that you’re exactly where you need to be, right now.
This morning, my quiz result was Zimbabwe. What’s yours?
p.s. – Join the book’s launch team!
