Does a traveler need a home? Is traveling with children a utopia?

We will soon return to Moscow and this thought, oddly enough, warms me up. On this trip to Thailand, I once again felt how I want to settle in one place and I want to return home, and since the house is in Moscow, it means exactly there. Even though I would gladly bear «House» to another place (Moscow region, Sochi, another country), it is Moscow that is now associated with the house where you want to be. Such is the paradox.

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Home is within us, but not quite

Many travelers say that the house is within us. I completely agree, and it is in travel that you understand this. You understand that people invented the boundaries, but you can live, in principle, everywhere and harmony in your soul is associated with something more than your geographical position. Considering that there are pluses almost everywhere. Even the same Bangkok, although I don't like big cities, I liked it and I could live in it.

The house is inside us, you can even live in this;)

Only now all the same «House» in one way or another, it also has a physical embodiment, even if we then leave the sphere of philosophizing about all kinds of harmonies into the sphere of everyday life. You come to the place and settle down physically, so to speak, the inner house finds its material embodiment. And, after a certain number of times of arrangement, you get tired of carrying out this process. I do not know about others, but I do. While the arrangement consisted of attaching a laptop somewhere for work, no question! But when this process began to include moving hundreds of kg of things from one point to another, packing and unpacking them, looking for housing with certain conditions, when you need to buy pots and resolve the same issues for the tenth time, I got tired. Believe it or not, it takes time and effort. Each such trip resembles a move rather than a trip-trip. And as you know, moving is akin to a fire :)

Therefore, I adore those who travel with children. Guys, how does it not bother you that a household topic takes so much time from your life? I don’t know, maybe I’m getting old, but when housing is tailored for you and there is a whole set of necessary things, when the paths in the area have already been trodden and you know where the store is, where is the post office, where is the hospital, it’s a hundred times more comfortable than learning it anew every time ... Well, it would be good if some more different issues had to be resolved, because the same, everyday ones. For the first time it is interesting to settle in a new place, in the second it is even more or less, in the third it gets.

The length of stay limits

And yet not everything can be sorted out. You wouldn't buy a dishwasher for a six-month stay, would you? And the car? Okay, why talk about cars, even for a microwave oven money is somehow a pity! After all, you will have to buy it almost every six months. Yes, you can sell later, but this is also the time! First spend time to buy, then time to sell.

And some issues are generally difficult to solve. For example, we now live in an apartment where there is no wifi, rented only for a month, and wifi can only be with a one-year contract. Paying for wifi for a year is somehow silly, isn't it? Or I need to order something on Aliexpress, but it will not have time to reach it, because we will have already left by the time of delivery. Or we would like a highchair, but not enough to buy it for a month, but we would buy it for a year. There are a number of items that are not desperately needed, but which I would like to have for a long time, it is more convenient with them. And so in many ways, a lot of restrictions due to the temporary stay. And if we continue this analogy, then ideally also learn the Thai language, because when communicating with ordinary people (taxi drivers, nurses, staff in a condo) it is very lacking, you just cannot explain what you need. But is it worth learning Thai again because of several months of being in the country??

Until you equip your new home, it will take so much time ... and it's time to move

Ideally live in 2-3-4 countries

As a result, we have: if you have a family, if comfortable living conditions are required, and at the same time the financial and time aspects of this event are important, then you need to have a permanent home - a place where everything is clear, known, equipped, customized for you and your family. You have already bought all the necessary things, you know the phone numbers of the necessary specialists and you know who to contact, if anything. This allows you to free up time for some other activities (for work in the end), instead of moving, arrangements, instead of looking for the same information at each new place. Well, either you have to be an oligarch in order to be able, for the sake of a couple of months of stay, to buy yourself, for example, a car (and then throw it away), and all the questions that arise so that hired assistants can solve.

  • I see a way out for myself in living in two places / countries (or even more) at the same time, if there is an opportunity to become attached to a place, that is, to have two fully equipped bases. The further, the more I am convinced of this. In the end, it will come out even cheaper and more efficient in time than living by swoops, buying and selling things, and transporting them from place to place. A good example is a dacha in the suburbs. Obviously, it is much easier to buy a second microwave there than to carry it with you from Moscow. And it never occurs to anyone to plan an arrangement there during each visit. It's easier to equip it once, and then use it for 10 years, periodically arriving. An apartment in another city / country is not much different from such a summer residence, the approach is the same. For some, it may be a trivial understanding, but it came to me recently :)
  • If you cannot decide on a permanent second place (this is a binding), you just want to travel to different places, then it is enough to have one base, but leave it somewhere only for a short time (1-4 weeks), hammering in the arrangement generally. That is, the point is not to go somewhere to live, but to travel. Or you can drive without a child, give it to your grandmother, and yourself with backpacks give up somewhere for a week, then there should be no talk of arranging.
  • There is also a third option, to have one base, but move it at regular intervals. For example, once every 2-3 years. A kind of mega-long travel. Just such a period when you can painlessly live and settle down, as if you live in one place, for example, by buying the same dishwasher or car, as well as spending time and finding all the necessary services in the area. Of course, moving in this case is a morally costly event, but still it is not so critical than once every six months..

It's easier to make several bases than to carry all the junk every time

Initially, I wanted option 3, since this is the same travelliving (if you can call it a life on a trip, when you sit in one place for a couple of years), but in fact options 1 and 2 are more suitable (we will omit the topic of emigration for now). On the other hand, many travelers, especially those who had children, ran over and eventually settled in one place for a long time: someone in the Philippines, Thailand and Bali, and someone returned home or just emigrated.

Traveling utopia?

I would like to ask, is travel utopia? Sooner or later 99% settles?

A separate question for remotely working winterers / travelers with children, how do you cope and manage, how do you not get tired of doing the same thing at every new place? Doesn't want to make a nest and make a base-house? Or have they all been living in two countries for a long time or have they dramatically increased the length of stay? :)

P.S. It just became interesting how other people developed with travel, wintering after the appearance of children or some other circumstances in life. Children, after all, not only change their way of life, but also often change their worldview..

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