From Wanderer to Settler — How I redefined the way I travel

Three years ago, I set off down the road with a backpack far too big and a heart bursting with questions. I craved the world — not just its landscapes, but its textures, its silences, its unfamiliar tongues. I wanted to lose myself in places I couldn't pronounce, to gather faces I’d never see again but would carry with me forever.

I was weightless. Moved by an invisible current I had no wish to resist. A silhouette fading into scenery, barely anchored. I came and went. Fast. Restless. One week here, the next already gone. The Andes beneath my feet, Caribbean rhythms in my ears, unfamiliar flavors blooming on my tongue. I was alive in motion. There was something almost euphoric about that blur — as if staying still would mean missing out on something vital.

But then came a night. One of many. I was on a bus somewhere between two dusty Argentine towns, the road winding through the mountains, my head resting against the cold window. My backpack lay slumped by my feet like a quiet witness to it all. I had lost track of the places, the hostels, the endless "Where are you from?"s that filled the first five minutes of every new encounter.

And suddenly, in that murky window, I caught my own reflection — and with it, a question I hadn’t dared ask. What was I really doing? Was I gathering the world, or merely skimming across its surface?

I was surrounded by breathtaking beauty, saturated with stories and histories far older than me — and yet, I felt hollow. Like someone flipping through pages of a book they’d never stop to read. A quiet emptiness crept in, whispering that seeing was no longer enough. That I was longing for something deeper — not more places, but more presence.

That moment, brief and unremarkable on the outside, was a turning point. It cracked something open. I didn’t want to pass through the world anymore. I wanted to belong, even if only for a little while. To listen without needing to move on. To stay long enough for silence to settle.

That shift in desire is what led me to slow down. To change how I traveled — and ultimately, why I traveled.

Costa Rica is where that change began to take root.

It’s where I stopped running. Where I said, “Enough chasing.” Where I began to give something back.

I arrived with no plan, only a desire to stay. To touch the soil, to speak the language — not just to ask for directions, but to listen. I started volunteering, first in a surf hostel being built from the bones of driftwood and rusted nails, a dream growing out of sand and salt. We laid bricks by day and shared stories by night, sketching out a place for wandering souls to pause and feel human again.

Later, I moved to the Caribbean coast, to a sea turtle conservation station so remote it felt like the edge of the world. There were no travelers there — just locals, the stars, the tides, and us. Our nights were long and silent, spent patrolling dark beaches in search of nesting turtles. We whispered under the moon, tracked prints in the sand, protected life we’d never see hatch. I learned to walk slowly. To pay attention. To be useful without being loud.

There was no glory in it. No Instagram post that could truly contain it. But in those moments — raw, repetitive, quietly sacred — I began to understand what it meant to truly be somewhere. To stop extracting beauty and start honoring it. I was no longer passing through. I was participating.

After Costa Rica, I kept heading north — without quite knowing where I was going, or for how long. Canada welcomed me for what I thought would be a few months. I stayed two years.

Two years of living by the rhythm of the seasons. Of falling asleep to the hush of snowfall and waking to the call of loons on still lakes. I took seasonal jobs that tethered me to places I’d never have chosen on a map. Bartending in a village pub where laughter cracked like firewood. Guiding sled dogs through the frozen forests of the far north. Working at a remote fishing lodge only the locals knew how to find.

Each of these places, each of these lives I briefly lived, left a mark on me. I wasn’t collecting countries anymore. I was being shaped by them.

With each new chapter, I shed a little of my accent, my reference points, to make room for those of others. I was no longer traveling just to see, but to understand. No longer collecting landscapes like souvenirs, but weaving invisible threads between souls and stories. And the more I rooted myself in the communities I passed through, the more I felt my own identity being reshaped — not by what I left behind, but by everything I chose to embrace along the way.

I shed a little more of what I thought I knew. My accent softened. My inner compass began to shift. I no longer traveled to see — but to understand. Not to collect landscapes, but to weave myself into them. And the more I rooted myself in the communities I passed through, the more I felt my own identity being reshaped — not in what I had left behind, but in all I had chosen to carry with me.

That’s what ultimately led me here.

To the quiet stillness of the Arctic.

To Norway.

Far from the chaos of cities, I chose a life on a remote farm in the heart of the Arctic. A choice that was anything but random: I longed to learn how to live in a polar environment, to meet the cold face to face, to confront silence and solitude — and above all, to immerse myself in a culture still unknown to me.

Here, every day is both a challenge and a gift. A quiet invitation to stretch my limits, to listen more closely to the rhythms of nature, and to step into the world of those who have long called this land home. Norway is no longer just a waypoint on a map. It has become a place of grounding. A space of learning, of inner shifting.A new home — not because I’ve arrived, but because I’ve chosen to stay.

The more distance I put between myself and the girl who once hurried from one place to the next — backpack strapped tight, camera in hand — the more I begin to glimpse another way of moving through the world. One that doesn't rush, doesn’t perform, doesn’t seek to be impressive.

By settling in, by working with my hands, by syncing my rhythm to that of the people around me, I’ve come to feel a kind of calm I didn’t know I was missing.A calm that doesn’t come from doing less — but from being more fully wherever I am.

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And so, my definition of travel has changed. To travel, for me, is no longer to leave. It’s to stay.

It’s to contribute to something that was here before me, and will remain long after. It’s to listen to a country speak in its own voice — not through museum plaques, but through the stories whispered over dinner tables, around fires, across fences. It’s to speak the language, not fluently, but sincerely.

Travel, now, is no longer about crossing borders. It’s about inhabiting a place — even just for a moment — as if it were home. It’s about learning how to exist somewhere, fully, quietly, without needing to move on. And in doing so, slowly, softly, stop feeling like a traveler altogether.