It wasn’t a decision, so much as a realization: I don’t want to do this anymore. 

I don’t want to be constantly making new friends that I will never see again. I don’t want to be shoving everything I own into a suitcase every couple of months. And if I have to harass my cell phone carrier about my international data one more time, I just might scream.

…Okay, let me go back to the beginning. 

It’s hard to overstate how badly I wanted to travel as a kid. We’re talking “10-year-old who wanted a globe for Christmas” levels of desire here. But it simply wasn’t something my family did — I was well into my twenties before I even left the United States, and I’d only left California a handful of times prior to that. Even the East Coast seemed strange and exotic. Europe might as well have been another dimension.

I was a very bored, very rambunctious little girl. I didn’t just want to see the world, I wanted freedom. In high school, I once told a counselor that my post-grad plan was to buy a school bus, paint it psychedelic colors, and drive around the country. I was dead serious about this, and I was incensed when they laughed me out the door.

So ten years later, when I found myself with a stable remote job and nothing keeping me pinned down? It seemed foolish to waste the opportunity. I wasn’t going to just take a measly trip or two, I was going 24/7, non-stop, wherever I wanted to go.

I took the plunge. I got to see places that I didn’t think I would ever get to see. I even made it to that strange, alternate dimension called “Europe.” I could fill entire books with all the things that have happened to me in my years of living nomadically, and maybe one day I will. 

That’s not what I want to talk about today. You’ve heard plenty of exciting tales from around the world (including some of mine, if you’re a regular Jack’s reader!) but today’s story starts with the uglier side of traveling, the one that you discover very quickly when you’re moving non-stop: burnout. 

That sickening feeling when you look at your itinerary, at all the plans you excitedly made months ago, and you think “Do I even want to do this?”

When people talk about “burnout,” they’re mostly referring to work stress, but it can happen with anything. Even the dream lifestyle you’ve wanted since you were a kid. It can also make you feel a little like a Debbie Downer — sometimes it seems like everyone in the entire world is desperate to travel, and you’re the odd one out if you don’t think it sounds exciting. 

And I understand that perspective! I remember when I was first getting started, and I saw a piece of advice on the r/digitalnomad subreddit: “You probably don’t actually want to be a digital nomad.”

“Well that’s stupid,” I thought. “Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t everyone want to do this?”

But… I get it now. Most people don’t actually want to live like this. They want the freedom and the excitement that comes with living nomadically, but they don’t realize how much of your life has to be dismembered in order to make it happen.

It’s not just one big sacrifice that you make at the beginning, either. Sure, constant solo travel means you’re giving up any chance at a stable in-person social life. You have to give up all the hobbies that can’t fit into your luggage. You have to give up your home. That’s the deal you make when you first take off.

However, I never thought about all the other sacrifices that just keep coming. Smaller, less significant sacrifices, but sacrifices nonetheless. You can’t buy souvenirs from any of these cool destinations unless you want to lug them around for god-knows how long. You can’t go to that concert tour because the dates don’t line up with your itinerary. You find yourself buying another frying pan, because for some reason this kitchen doesn’t have one and you had to jettison the last three frying pans you bought because you needed the luggage space and ugh.

When I first started living nomadically, none of these sacrifices — not even the major ones — seemed like a big deal. The allure of travel was so strong that it overshadowed any of the downsides, and it stayed that way for years. How could I be so stupid as to stop traveling, even to take a break? Didn’t I remember how badly I always wanted this? How lucky I am to be in this position? How many people would kill for this lifestyle? How could I ever just… give it up?

To paraphrase the poet Frank Bidart, sometimes you can drink til you’re sick but you can’t drink til you’re satisfied. Seasoned travelers know you cannot ever truly satiate the travel bug. You just have to make the conscious, difficult decision to actively ignore the sucker before it makes you sick. Because the travel bug might inspire you to get off the couch, but it doesn’t always have your best interests in mind. If you let it call the shots for too long, if you start thinking life is something that exclusively happens anywhere but home, you start to miss out.

Recently, I was watching a YouTube video by the famous drag queen Trixie Mattel. She was talking about how she was grateful for her successful career and all the unique experiences it provided, but then she goes…

“Sometimes I'm like, "Wow, I am living life in 4K fast forward, super speed… a whole life in a month, you know, and then sometimes I check in with friends from college and everybody has children… have I really lived life or has this prevented me from living my life? I don't know."

It was like a light bulb went off in my head. My twenties haven’t exactly been average, to say the least, and I’m grateful for that. I never wanted an average life. But the flipside is that you end up looking at your peers, the people you went to school with, and realizing there’s miles and miles of distance between you, both literally and figuratively. You’re burned out and lonely and no longer as easily impressed by your fast-paced lifestyle. And suddenly, that average life with the average apartment and the average social life and the average hobbies looks mighty aspirational. 

Which brings us back to the beginning: I don’t want to do this anymore. 

I’ve had that feeling plenty of times in the last few years, and I always told myself it just meant I needed to rest, maybe take a week off. The travel bug was persistent. 

Besides the urge to take advantage while I still could, the thought of quitting entirely just plain made me nervous. I had set out to expand my comfort zone, and instead I created a new one, one where I felt safer while I was on the move. My single-minded pursuit of freedom had become its own kind of cage, and everything outside that cage seemed threatening. What if I have to commit to a long-term lease? What if I embarrass myself in front of a neighbor, and now I can’t find solace in the fact that I’ll never see them again? What if I get bored again like I did as a kid?

These fears have always kept me moving. But this time, the deep desire for some damn peace and quiet feels… different. Just like how the downsides to solo nomadding seemed minimal two years ago, now the downsides to being stationary seem like nothing. I handled living in a glorified shed for months in New Orleans, I handled losing my luggage in England with no cell service, and I handled five days in Alaska living off tortilla wraps. Sure, I can handle a long-term lease. Bring it on.

This summer, I drove from Utah to Canada by myself. These thoughts had already been floating around in my head, but while exploring Grand Teton National Park, I ended up talking to another woman on my hiking trail. We chatted for hours while we hiked up to a waterfall, and I told her all about my nomadic life on the road. Then I told her I was thinking of ending it. I hadn’t said it out loud til that moment, but as soon as I started explaining the decision to her, it settled in my gut. Yep, I was done. As soon as I got to my next rental, I started shopping for long-term apartments.

It was a bit like breaking up with someone. You always know deep down that it’s over well before you admit it to yourself.

So I guess this is my break-up letter to my nomadic lifestyle. We had some good times together. You taught me a lot about myself. I’m smarter and stronger for having known you, and I don’t regret a single second. I’m lucky to have spent so much time with you and it hurts to say goodbye. Maybe one day, we can settle into casual friendship, and I will find excitement in the occasional airport chaos and overstuffed suitcase once again.

But right now, I have some gorgeous O’Keeffe prints from Santa Fe that I’ve been lugging around for god-knows how long, and all I want is a place where I can hang them up on the wall.