chapter 9: what is home?
pondering a question often considered by nomads and multicultural people
⏰ 6-8 minute read
Have you ever sat in a room with dozens of intellectually curious individuals who choose to spend their Saturday night having a “philosophy slumber party” to discuss topics like “what is home?”
Last weekend in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to do exactly that thanks to my friend Jerry who invited me as a guest to this community event for members and +1s at The Commons, a community space which calls itself “a home outside of home.”
It felt like divine timing that I was in town for only one week and I just happened to overlap with this particular discussion which struck a poignant chord within someone like me whose definition of home is quite complicated as a bicoastal, biracial, nomadic soul.
The tone of the evening was set by the organizer reading a poem about home and prompting everyone to start with a few minutes of journaling into their notes app on their phone to answer the question:
“Where do I call home?”
As I started to type out my thoughts, I realized they fell into a few separate buckets:
places I chose to call home
I started by jotting down just three answers that first came to mind:
New York City
San Francisco
Los Angeles
The three cities I’ve chosen to move to, whether for college or for a job or for a better alignment of a city with my personal interests, values, and hobbies.
places I didn’t choose, but are home
I thought deeper and realized that initial trio neglected where I’m really “from” not by choice, but by birth:
New Jersey
Philippines
Poland
Born in New Jersey to a Filipina mother and a Polish-American father, I did not have any personal influence on these homes being part of my life, but they are the physical and cultural homes that cradled me and shaped me from my youngest years onward.
places I chose to have short-but-pivotal life experiences
In true You Are Where You Go fashion of believing my study abroad locations defined and shaped my personality, I wrote down one more list of three:
Florence, Italy
Tel Aviv, Israel
Singapore
I spent between 5 weeks and 5 months in each of the above destinations, and I overcame significant personal challenges like living abroad for the first time, dealing with imposter syndrome in a fellowship surrounded by people who reminded me I wasn’t always the smartest person in the room, and discovering how to embody the outgoing personality I’d always wished I had, in order to build a social circle from the ground up amidst 2,000 fellow exchange students from around the world who evolved from complete strangers into one of the most vibrant and diverse communities I’ve ever been lucky enough to call my friends.
These places feel like home due to how much time I spent there compared to the average trip abroad, but also due to how much I credit my current identity to the formative experiences I had in those (temporary) homes.
characteristics of places that feel like home
In a broader sense, as the timer was running out for this micro-journaling session, I picked out a few non-places that capture the feeling of what makes a place feel like home to me:
Community of like-minded, passionate people
Access to nature
Ability to tap into inspiring forms of human expression like music, unique food, ethnic dances, museums, and public art
I’ve always sought out these elements within a new place I’m exploring or within a place I’ve recently moved to in order to feel more at home since these characteristics of a place align with my own values and priorities in life.
How do these journal answers play out in real life conversations?
Below is a summary of some of the conversations I had with dozens of others who joined the discussion about “home” as I introduced and reintroduced myself multiple times that night:
“Where’s home for you?” (abridged)
I’m originally from NJ but now I live in LA.
“Where’s home for you?” (unabridged)
I am born and raised in New Jersey, moved to New York for college, lived in San Francisco for a bit, and now I live in LA.
“Where’s home for you?” (super unabridged, reverse chronological)
I’ve been based in LA for the past year while traveling about once a month but prior to that, I spent a year and a half nomading around – a month in Maine, two months in San Diego, three in San Francisco, one in LA, and then three months of ping-ponging across the US and Europe staying with friends in different cities, then back to the Bay Area, then back to my hometown.
And prior to that, I moved to New York City for college but only spent about half my time there since I studied abroad multiple times in Florence, Tel Aviv, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Peru and Ghana and then graduated early to travel for a few months before the pandemic happened.
But originally, I’m from a small town called Oakland in New Jersey, and my parents’ families are from the Philippines and Poland.
“What made you choose to call LA home after so much traveling and being unsettled?”
I love how generally the people I’ve met in LA are all actually doing something they love. LA has always been a city where people go to chase their dreams, particularly in the realm of entertainment, and is not dominated by one large “traditional job” industry in the way that New York is gripped by finance, consulting, and advertising and how San Francisco is dominated by tech companies.
Los Angeles has a little bit of all of the above, and the main common thread I’ve found through my friends is that they actually care about something deeply enough to pursue that passion, whether full time or part time.
I also love how in LA I’m able to balance access to nature – like the ocean, hiking trails, and national parks and snowy mountains within driving distance – with a vibrant live music and pop culture scene that makes me feel like I’ve finally found a perfect symbiosis between the natural and the human-made. And the people I meet in LA seem to likewise be seeking that balance.
so, where’s home for you, my friend?
I’m not the only one who feels like “Where’s home?” is a complex question – I’m thankful that I’ve grown to surround myself with people who also have complex histories of “home” such as:
Born in Singapore, grew up in New Jersey, went to NYC for college while family moved to Texas, and now moving to Texas.
Born in Brazil, moved to Mexico, currently living in California, but soon moving back to New York.
Born in Bulgaria, moved to New York, moved to Los Angeles, and is now almost fully nomadic on a continuous exploration of “home” across the world.
Born in Boston but grew up in Costa Rica, then went to school in the Bay Area and moved to LA.
Born in Iran, lived in Austria during a transitional period as a refugee, moved to LA and happily claimed it as a longterm home.
Born in the Philippines, moved to New Jersey with family, chose to move to New York City, then moved to London.
Home is more than just where you currently live or pay rent; home is a collection of the places that comprise your unique history and have shaped you into the person you are.
parting thoughts
This week’s newsletter has been less of a cohesive article, and more of an effort to organize hours-long conversations about “home” into a thought-provoking collection of musings. I’ll leave you with this:
Where you grow up is not something you can choose, but where you move to and ultimately call home is something you can choose.
We often say the phrase “feels like home” – so, home is a place, but it’s also a feeling. To me, that feeling of home is the ability to be authentically yourself in an environment and community that does not make you feel like you need to modify yourself or your interests or preferences to fit in.
Home is a collection of places and choices and memories and feelings.
Everywhere you go becomes a part of you.
Your entire history of places you’ve lived and worked and traveled and loved and laughed and cried is your home because… you are where you go!
xoxo your *deeply pondering the concept of home* Type A travel bestie,
Caitlyn
🚨 PS – my first in-person author event!
This week, on Thursday March 30 at 7pm, I’m hosting my first-ever in-person author event at Village Well cafe and bookstore in Culver City, Los Angeles!
The event is free and open to the public – I’ll be reading an excerpt from my book and then hosting a Q&A about my book and the life of a 24-year-old travel memoir author.
If you’re local to SoCal, it would mean the world to me to see you there! I’ll have physical copies of my book for sale and will be signing personalized copies as well :)
Celebrate Women's History Month with local author and female traveler Caitlyn Lubas!
Hear excerpts of stories from Caitlyn's experiences camping in Antarctica, exploring the savannah on a 6-week safari in eastern Africa, living abroad for the first time at age 19, redefining "normal" by gaining new perspectives, and more. After a brief reading, Caitlyn will host a chat and Q&A touching topics across the range of learning and growing through travel, solo travel as a woman, how to make the most of a semester or opportunity to live abroad, and the importance of making necessary sacrifices and traveling on a budget while young.
🚨 If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to your friends! I am doing this all completely free and out of the kindness of my heart because I want to share my knowledge to help as many people as possible travel more economically, more sustainably, and more intentionally…
so forward this email, share the link, post it on your IG story… share it far and wide, please, if you find this valuable :)
📝 travel hack of the week
Track your flights on Flighty! Not only does this app give you an annual summary of all your flights from the past years with a fun sharable image like below, it also will give you very detailed updates about your incoming flights if you pay for their premium annual subscription.
The free app alone is 1000% worth a download for the curious traveler who loves analyzing their life and habits through app-generated annual reviews (shoutout to Spotify for pioneering this cultural phenomenon with their end-of-year Wrapped campaign!).
But I ended up paying for (and would recommend) the annual subscription, if you fly 20+ times a year like I do… if this app can let me know that my flight is delayed before the airline even communicates it to customers, and can save me endless hours of waiting at an airport, it’s so worth $49.99 to me because time is the most limited resource!
🌎 where in the world is caitlyn?
I’m currently debuting my You Are Where You Go custom logo-imprinted beanie in Mammoth Lakes, California, where it is a chilly high of 26˚F and I’m about to hop onto the slopes for a full day of snowboarding in the sunshine.
I’m leading a group trip that I organized with quite a hodgepodge of people: one I met in a hostel in Norway, one I met at a bonfire in San Diego, one I met at a happy hour in Santa Monica, one I met online and then finally in person in Mexico City when she joined my group trip there without having even met me before (shoutout to Mari! I absolutely love you and cannot wait to keep having more adventures with you 🫶🏼).
Snowboarding is a sport that I only started learning this past year and this might be the last day of my 2023 winter season – I feel pretty accomplished having mastered the key basic maneuvers (just a matter of getting over my own fear of going fast now!) and I’ve loved experiencing Big Bear, Lake Tahoe, and Mammoth Lakes ski resorts all throughout California with a different group of ski buddies each time.
👯♀️ group trip opportunities
🤿.🦈 🌊 los cabos, mexico - june 1-5
Only 1 spot left!
We made room for a few more people to join this trip due to the overwhelming demand – if you’ve been thinking about getting scuba certified, or if you are a certified diver and want the underwater adventure of a lifetime… look no further!
I’ve partnered with Your Friends Are Boring, a trip-planning platform centered around travel-centric sports like surfing and scuba diving, to serve as their first guest host for this dive trip.
Check out the full trip outline I put together to get all the details and sign up by April 17!
☀️🌲⛰ seattle / olympic national park, washington - july 27-aug 1
A friend from Seattle once told me that summer in Seattle is “godly” and I now always use that phrase, because it’s true – I visited Seattle and the San Juan islands in summer 2021 and absolutely fell in love, to the point that I thought about taking a solo trip back to Seattle last August just to experience it all again.
Solo trips are tough on the wallet for renting cars and exploring the incredible national parks of the Pacific Northwest, however, so a group trip is the perfect opportunity to explore Seattle and its surrounding nature – like the only rainforest in the US, located in Olympic National Park just 3 hours from the city.
Check out the cost details and general itinerary and hit me up if you’re interested in joining this trip and making some new friends in the PNW!
🪣 bucket list inspo
Earlier this week, I had to air dry my clothes all throughout my apartment because my dryer was not working well. Having damp clothes strewn across every ledge and hanging surface vividly reminded me of being on safari, needing to hand wash and hang-dry clothes, in East Africa as I camped for six weeks straight in 2020 as part of my post-grad trip.
That trip, and all of its inconveniences, made me appreciate all the comforts of home that I normally had taken for granted, like laundry machines, proper toilets, and abundant toilet paper in contrast to the limited resources available while overland traveling through developing countries.
Would you adopt a tent and a safari vehicle as your home for 6+ weeks on an overland trip? I’d highly recommend it for the sake of being deeply embedded in the natural world!
💭 food for thought
How much does your ideal home exist out there somewhere waiting to be found, versus how much do you need to put in effort to create your ideal home in a place you move to?
I heard this sound byte recently during a webinar and it’s been stuck in my head:
When you share what you love online, it’s magnetic – like-minded people are drawn to you and you don’t have to spend as much time proactively seeking out “your people”
I could not agree with this more. Ever since I’ve doubled down on building my personal brand as a girl who loves travel, adventure, scuba diving, concerts and festivals, and overall trying new things, I’ve noticed an extreme uptick in the amount of friends I’ve made who I consider “soulmate friends” and connections I’ve been introduced to who deeply align with my values and passions.
Because I make people aware of what I love through my Instagram and through this newsletter and through my book, I have been able to draw my ideal community to me like a magnet, which has made LA feel like home more than any other city I’ve previously lived in.
Just a few examples of these connections that happened due to making people aware of my passions:
My friend sat next to someone on a plane who is friends with a girl who loves scuba diving and lives in LA but is originally from the northeast – which sounds just like me! – so she introduced us and we ended up grabbing coffee and might go on a dive trip together this summer.
Another friend introduced me to his two friends who run Your Friends Are Boring since they were looking to expand into diving trips and I came to mind due to how much I post about loving diving and loving travel in general – and now I’m leading one, if not two or more, trips with them this year to help others explore diving in exotic locations abroad.
Many people feel like they don’t know anyone who wants to do adventurous travel like gorilla trekking through Uganda and Rwanda – but is it because you don’t know anyone like that, or is it because no one knows that you are that type of person too? Because I talk and post so often about my love of adventure travel, some friends whom I’ve only met once gravitated toward me and my trips and I managed to assemble a group of 8 travel-loving girls who are down to spend 2 weeks traversing east African safari lands and getting up close and personal with gorillas in their natural habitat of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest this September.
So, think about it – if you feel like you are missing people like you in your home or in your life in general… is it because the like-minded people don’t exist, or is it because you don’t vocalize your passions and interests enough to help those soulmate friends gravitate toward you naturally?
📱let’s connect
If you’ve got feedback on the format of this newsletter, or suggestions for travel topics you want to hear more about, don’t be shy! Reply to this email or DM me:
Instagram: @caitlynlubas / @you.are.where.you.go
Twitter: @caitlynlubas
TikTok: @you.are.where.you.go
LinkedIn: Caitlyn Lubas (feel free to reach out if you want to talk about working remotely, transitioning careers, etc!)
That’s all for now…
Remember, you are where you go – never stop exploring the world and yourself! 🌎 🌍 🌏
If you enjoy my writing in this newsletter, you’d love my book called You Are Where You Go: A Traveler’s Coming of Age Journey Through 70 Countries and 7 Continents During College. Feel free to pick up a copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or reply if you’re interested in me sending you a signed hardcover or paperback copy :)