Interrupting My Regularly Scheduled Programming

A Special Guest Entry in Untethered: How Wanderers Travel

August 17, 2023: Hi friends! Today’s post is a slight detour from the norm because I have some exciting news: I wrote an essay that was selected to be published in a digital zine! 📖 💫

Introducing Untethered: How Wanderers Travel — a special project put together by

Tobi Ogunnaike

featuring his own fantastic writing plus several guest entries — prose, poetry, pictures and palpable reflections on travel. You can read more about the backstory of how this project came to be on Tobi’s blog here.

My piece, Stop and Smell the Roses, explores the often unspoken and less glamorous side of my nomadic lifestyle. Contrary to the highlight reel you might see on Instagram, along with full-time travel comes inescapable exhaustion and sometimes, loss of self. Here’s a little sneak peek:

Stop and Smell the Roses

“So Emily, where are you off to next?” my parent’s neighbor asked, after mentioning that she loved to live vicariously through my travel tales. “Well, I’m starting in Prague, but only for two weeks, and then I’m heading to Austr—” “ONLY for two weeks?!” she interrupted. “Man, that’s longer than any vacation I’ve ever been on!”

I half-heartedly began to explain that I was not, in fact, going on vacation, but instead decided this time to just smile and keep the conversation moving. I get this reaction often, second only to the number of baffled looks I get after responding “I don’t know” to the unexpectedly complex question of “where do you live?”

As a full-time nomad for the past three years, I find it pretty difficult to sit still. I’ve visited dozens of countries, hundreds of cities and am constantly on the move. I’ve got the living out of a suitcase thing down to a science, a bucket list a mile wide and a knack for falling in love with the unknown.

But at the same time, after three years — I’m tired.

Moving cities, countries or even continents every couple of weeks is equally exhausting as it is exhilarating. Six hour bus rides seemingly always turn into nine, flight path serendipity remains elusive, and constantly lugging bulky suitcases up five elevator-less flights is just simply not my idea of a good time. To be clear, it’s the actual traveling part of travel that I dislike…

Want to read the rest?

Grab a copy of Untethered here — your support means everything! 🤗

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