Roots

I'm staying at a beautiful bungalow in Koh Tao, an island near Koh Samui and Koh Phang Ngan, on the east coast of Thailand. I feel like I've been traveling for quite a while; I'm about to hit 13 months of my trip (12 months of actual travel but I left 13 months ago). I feel like I've been gone quite a while and there are things I'm very excited for when I return home in about 50 days.

I met a family who is staying in a nearby bungalow who are about two years into a four or four and a half year trip. They have been all over the world and experienced many different cultures, countries and adventures. The father is German, the mother is from Russia, they "live" in Canada, and the kids, aged about 15 and 13 already speak fluent English, Russian and German and they are learning Chinese and Spanish. I was wondering about this family and how it has been for them to travel for that long. I wonder if the kids miss the same kinds of things that I do, or if they're so used to this way of life that they don't really miss things from home anymore.

In a previous post, I said I would always need to be traveling and experiencing new things. I think I've slightly modified that decision. I will always need to travel but I'm not sure that I could live abroad for continuous amounts of time. I miss my family, my friends, my cats and my kitchen too much. It has been too long since I've had access to an oven and I miss baking bread and experimenting with new dishes. I love Southeast Asian food, but I am very excited to make my own food instead of going out for every meal. I'm excited to have my own bed and run in the woods behind my parents' house. I'm looking forward to Peet's coffee and Mexican food. I can't wait to go to my family's cabin in Idaho. I once heard that a person is a sum of her experiences. I certainly feel like I am both a sum of the experiences I've had on this trip and the experiences I'm looking forward to having again when I return home. I'm lucky I have the option to do both.