Feeling at home away from home

The same thing happened to me on my first trip to England. Place names, literary references,it all added up to a feeling of being home.

Allan, yeah England seems very familiar and I think a lot of it has to do with decades of exposure to Brit television, literature, news, politics and films. Seems like half the best actors in Hollywood are Brits. But I immediately felt comfortable in Switzerland, even without any historical or familial connection. It seemed so much more cultured and civilized than other places I'd been.

Allan, familiarity in the lifestyle, along with shared language, clearly created a homey (or should O say homely?) feeling. While France, Morocco, Romania, etc. aren’t exactly as familiar as my U.S.A home, I’ve almost always felt welcome on other countries, so it’s been like being in a comfortable place, away from home.

The biggest exception has been a number of situation in Russia over 2 trips, and even then, it wasn’t universal. Oh yeah, airport security and customs haven’t always been so welcoming. The customs people in Denver, actual “home” have been among the least welcoming of the bunch. It’s as if their attitude was, why did I leave for any time, and should they really let me back in? Home sweet home, once you can get past those grumps.

Well, a little different, but my 'heart home' is the Serengeti. Must be my homo erectus roots going back to before they migrated to Scotland and Sweden. The sense of peace, belonging and connection was pretty profound.
But if you mean modern time, not sure if I can say I have been anywhere with that same feeling as other have mentioned. For one thing, I wasn't born in Canada and have lived in a number of places so where is 'home'? I also haven't visited long enough to feel the UK connection. I did struggle with my short visits particularly crosswalks and looking rt, lt, rt.
I wonder if part of it is also how you go about your lodgings and how much you set up and maintain personal routines. I stay in apartments and maintain quite a few of my daily routines, so that seems to make a lot of places feel comfortable.
Spain felt pretty comfortable for some reason. Maybe I remember being surrounded by Spanish language from my very young childhood.

When I travel, I actually prefer not to feel at home.

For me one of the thrills of traveling is experiencing new cultures, language barriers, the unfamiliar, the strange, the bizarre, the different. Sometimes this can be uncomfortable, but conquering my discomfort is always rewarding.

The first time I rode on a tram in Amsterdam, I didn't know how to pay. I didn't know you had to scan your ticket on entry and on departure. Little by little I transformed myself into a "regular." I love that kind of experience. And it's good to spend enough time in the same place so that the unfamiliar becomes familiar. In a way, I suppose it's learning to feel at home in a place that doesn't initially feel that way.

Lane, well said.

Feeling at home... We lived in Latin America for nine years. As we were driving one time my wife and I were talking about an upcoming home leave. Our then six year old son pipes up from the back seat, "What do you mean? We are home!"

Just another perspective.

I agree with Lane to a great extent. If I wanted to feel "at home" I'd just stay home. I think (although I may be wrong) that Alan was equating "feeling at home" with a sense of comfort through familiarity. And that makes sense for many Canadians and Americans with a similar language and customs as found in the UK. I find I am much more likely to feel relaxed and confident in a country where I can speak the same language. On one driving trip DH and I both remarked on how we felt more relaxed once we'd entered France, even though our home for the past couple of years had been Germany. We realized it was because we were fluent in French, but still struggled with German.

But one of the reasons we love to travel is to experience new places, people and customs. We're more than happy to put "feeling at home" on the back burner.

Spain. I have zero Spanish ancestry, but it feels like home.

Austria felt wonderful, partially due to our love of the Sound of Music and Maria VonTrapp's book. But England and Scotland did feel a bit like home. Seeing the landscape of Scotland helped me understand why my ancestors settled in the mountains of north Georgia and North Carolina. Seeing my husband's grandmother's maiden name on a plaque in the market square of a small village in England felt marvelous!

Ireland. Hands down. Such a welcoming country and nothing feels cozier than a night spent in an Irish pub. Or an afternoon in an Irish kitchen around a pot of tea.

Rome felt surprisingly homelike as well. (Surprising because it’s such a big city for people to be so friendly. But I also think that of NYC). Again, people were so friendly and welcoming. The relaxing, inviting atmosphere of a Roman piazza in the evening felt very homey.

What an interesting topic. Really has me thinking. For me, I think language is a big factor though not always the primary one. I did a junior year in Munich in the 70s. Here are some of my "home" thoughts over time:

• Call it being a naive teenager getting off her first plane ride. My student group was taken to Nymphenburg Palace upon arrival in Munich as our dormitories were being prepared. Anyway, I was astonished, just blown away to see bees buzzing in the clover of the Nymphenburg lawns. It was the same as home! And then there were places like Woolworths, OMG, just like Allentown, PA - but that Munich year is an epic tale for another time.
• I have been to Heathrow enough times that when I exit the airport, a feeling of calm comes over me, a familiarity. I know where I am going (mostly) and it is a feeling of coming home after all the frantic preparations leading up to a trip. I am an avid traveller, but my friends will tell you that as I approach the Philly airport I start regretting leaving - always. Thank goodness for the homey feeling outside Heathrow.
• I kind of make my space, whatever it is, dorm or hotel room, my own. I move lamps and chairs for reading. I use trinkets or flowers I buy to make it mine. Sometimes, hotel people are ok with small non-permanent tweaks, but if I can tell they are not, I move the lamps, etc. back each morning. I did a number of summers in Oxford, and it was fun figuring out what to hang on the empty nails in the dormitory walls (I did not add any nails, just filled the ones there).
  
• I have recently rather gravitated to German-speaking areas, mostly alpine. I love when people ask me directions (anywhere in Europe). If I look like I belong there, why not enjoy it? Two peaceful, homey moments happened during my 2019 trip to Munich and surroundings and both were when shopping, and not particularly touristy shopping. One was when I encountered a home-goods store near the Viktualienmarkt in Munich and had great fun looking at chopping boards, glassware, and cook pots, just as if I could take them home and use them that night. The other was at the H&M in Garmisch. Me and the locals trying on fuzzy pink fleeces. It was great fun.
• Finally, I get tremendously sentimental about Johnny Jump-ups in village gardens. I mean the Jungfrau is great, but have you seen these Johnny Jump-ups? I have more photos than you can imagine of local house gardens. Love them.

Thanks for prompting these fun thoughts.

In the 80's and half the 90's my husband spent a couple weeks a couple times a year on business in Geneva, Switzerland. I would go along as often as I could. I grew to feel very at home there, grew a few friendships with people who worked for his company there, and came to know my way around the town through walking and taking public transportation. We had our favorite restaurants. All this despite not knowing how to speak French, although I am better at reading French. When we stayed in an apartment I cooked. I went to the Wednesday and Saturday flea markets. Actually I feel at home most everywhere in Switzerland. On business trips we always rented a car and took vacations in conjunction with the business trip. We continue to travel to Switzerland as often as we can. But now we purchase a Swiss travel pass that takes us everywhere we want to go. Part of my father's family came from canton Bern. We once one to a cafe in the small village where the most direct family came from. We went into a small restaurant and found a few older adults playfully teasing a preschooler. I could relate and told my husband they must be related to me as that's how I grew up, being playfully teased. It was a great experience and I felt at home.

The rest of my father's family were from Germany. My new feel at home place is in Bavaria, specifically Munich, our new favorite place. The last three trips we have stayed there at least 10 nights staying in the same room at Pension Lindner (RIP) and felt so at home there. Before that we stayed in other places near the Marienplatz. We have our favorite restaurants and know our way around. We both speak a little German and read it better than speak it. We also enjoy going to the many flea markets there. I enjoy visiting with the sellers. The last trip we also spent a week in Mittenwald. For the first time ever we purchased a half-board plan. I felt at home at this hotel. Coming back after a days outing was "coming home." We look forward to a return trip there as soon as possible.

I'll add a note for a different experience.

Went on first Rick Tours (two back to back: Italy (Ven, Flor, Rome) and then flew up for Best of Paris). This was before virus of course. Just before.

First time ever overseas. I did it by myself.

I booked extra days at the end of the tours on my own. At the end of each tour I had this feeling come over me: "I'm in a place where I don't speak the language and there is nobody here who cares if I live or die". (shudder)

And yes, I know there must be some who would, some medical people maybe. But their concern has limits.

I didn't anticipate that as the Tours were wonderful. I thought it might just be a fluke with the Italy trip but same for Paris.

I'll still go. But now I'll expect it.

For my wife and I, we feel like we’re going home every time we return to Spain. I’m sure it’s because we thoroughly enjoyed living there back in the late 70s. It doesn’t even matter which part of the country we’re visiting, we just feel extremely comfortable there.

Fall of 1976. I was a grad student, heading to Poland to do research for my dissertation. I spoke almost none of the language - I had only been able to take a correspondence course from the Kosciuszko Foundation. There was a Polish club not too far from where I was going to school, but they were proud of learning one new Polish word every month.

My father's family were of Polish extraction; in fact, my grandfather was born in Poland, but was brought to this country as an infant. When I was a little girl, I asked my grandmother to teach me Polish, but she said (typical of her generation:) "Why do you want to speak Polish; you're American. "

So I knew a handful of words and some basic grammatical structures. I had eaten Polish food. But that's it. I was going to be on my own in a town I'd never heard of to study a language I couldn't speak, while living on a minuscule student stipend. But when the plane landed in Warsaw, and I walked down the steps onto the tarmac, I was overcome by the feeling: "I'm home."

I felt at home in Poland. My dad is the first in his family born outside Ukraine, and so much about eastern Europe seemed familiar. England as well, but that's for obvious reasons.

I've noticed the last few trips, things don't seem as "foreign". Remember your first few trips when even small differences, like the sound of a siren, were strange and thrilling?

Sweden. Immediately. I just felt like I fit right in. It is the beautiful part of New England. And I laughed and laughed with so many people, whereas, in New England I often find I'm the only one laughing at certain things, which has gotten me in trouble, particularly with my birth family...when they're not laughing. LOL. Sweden just felt wonderful and like a home I've never known, but should have. One quarter of my ancestry is from Sweden, and I felt like some spirits were helping me have a great time.

Whereas, the rest and most of my DNA is the UK, which doesn't feel foreign to me, but it also doesn't feel as fun or relaxing as Sweden did. Nor does it feel as exciting as other countries I visit where I need to play with a foreign culture and language.

I live near Vail, Colorado. Going to Fussen Germany and Reutte in Austria felt like home. Vail was modeled and built by tyroleans and Bavarians.

I agree with Lane to a great extent. If I wanted to feel "at home" I'd
just stay home. I think (although I may be wrong) that Alan was
equating "feeling at home" with a sense of comfort through
familiarity.

You are correct in what I was getting at. I didn't go to England because it would feel like home to me; aside from the language, the feeling that I was with my people was totally unexpected. I don't disagree with Lane's comment that he prefers not feeling at home, but at the same time I don't seek it. And to use his example of not knowing how to pay for the tram in Amsterdam, I had that same kind of lost feeling the first time paying and getting on the Tube in London, or for that matter when you don't follow the Londoner's proper procedure on which side of the escalator to stand going down into a Tube station. And don't get me started on driving on the left side, just getting into the driver's side was an adventure that first day as I continually walked to the wrong side of my car...

Interesting topic, Allan. My family roots are German & British and thanks to DNA - also Norwegian. I was hoping for some Italian to explain my love of gelato and all things Italian, but nope!

Like Lane, I’m much more aware (and appreciative) of the cultural differences during my ten trips to Europe. But, I think the name of your topic “Feeling at home away from home” describes how I internally feel as I’m traveling. Yes, there’s lots of noticeable differences, yet I feel very comfortable- that feeling of being at home in the moment. Even with the small amount of language I learn, locals are friendly and helpful when I am humble. I think that’s why I felt very comfortable taking my last two trips in 2018 and 2019 as a solo traveler to Italy & France with my husband joining me on my 3rd week in France. I would take the train to the next small town, notice places and streets I had researched and feel both very excited and connected.

Ireland for me. The friendly helpful people and the rural scenery reminded me of where I grew up in the south. Even the narrow barely paved roads, although driving on the left not so much.

Edinburgh for me.
I lived there as a child for a time, then went back as a student in the 70-80's.
I've got relatives there and many friends. I feel quite at home there every time.
London is similar for me.
Florence feels like home to me, and I could quite happily spend two months there every Fall.

The relaxing, inviting atmosphere of a Roman piazza in the evening
felt very homey.

Interesting perspective. Rome was my first European city that I spent some time in and so everything was exciting and new. We stayed in Trastevere during a heat wave in October and every evening everyone was outside hanging around the fountain in Piazza di Santa Maria. Unlike Dana I didn't get that homey feel , but wonderfully, exotically foreign.

I seem to have an affinity for Poland and Africa. My mother was from Poland and perhaps that accounts for much of my feeling of being home when I visit there. Also, I have a strong spiritual and emotional attachment to Africa. When I arrive tears flow and I am at one with the place. I've traveled and spent time in quite a few of the countries and the feeling is the same whether Kenya or Zambia, etc.

I’m with Lane, it’s probably the primary reason I travel, to experience ‘other.’

I’ve not felt that at home feeling just yet in my travels, perhaps in the future when I visit countries of familial origin.

Granada, Spain. I had never really felt drawn to Spain until I saw pictures of the Alhambra. Walking through it, I felt like I’d been there before. I must have been a princess in a past life!

Scotland has some of the warmest, most welcoming people I’ve ever met. They went out of their way to make us feel “at home.”

In 2018 my father and I returned to Germany (I was last there in 1977). And we stopped in at our families home. I had never met my dads cousin or her children. But I had spent 5 days in the house with my dads Aunt in 77. So the house felt very much like home to me. As I had ran around that yard up those stairs and played on that floor. But yet it was totally strange to me as it had been remodeled a bit and the people and furniture were completely different.

As for placing feeling right... I have spent so much time researching railroads and coal mines in WV that I am not perfectly at home in that state.
But it was and is London I feel at home at. First visit was in 2017 and once I got past the giddy “OMG I am in LONDON”. bit I felt perfectly at home. Day one first type trip I grabbed the wrong train (one of those lines with two different lines trains on them, I grabbed the one that went the wrong way. Realized it about the time the doors closed , got off at the next station, and just picked up the next train. Never had an issue. Somehow the city while being foreign still felt perfectly comfortable to me.
So much so that I would move there in a minute if I could make a living that allowed me to live comfortably there.

I felt much more at home there then in say Germany and my dad was born in Germany......

Lithuania. For irrational reasons that have nothing to do with my actual experience in Lithuania. I went to a 4 week Yiddish class at Vilnius University, in August 2007. It was my first time traveling outside Michigan, a few states in the USA or Ontario Canada. I got college cedit for the class. I had become anamorate of the country when I was 16 after finding out I had ancestors who spoke Yiddish and were from Lithuania or neighborian countries where Yiddish and Lithuanian Jewish culture were spoken and observed.

I cannot identify with feeling welcome. Once while walking over a bridge over a river in Vilnius, with few other people nearby, a young couple pushing a stroller with a kid who was about under 2 years old, was approaching me; as we passed the man looked at me and said one or moreangry or accusing sentences. Another time I used the bathroom in a shack at a flea market in Vilnius; the shack seemed to be a semi or non-permanent miniature place for selling alcohol. On the counter inside was a plate with some crackers with toppings a sign showing they cost 1.2 Lisa's, a few tables, and chairs. The crackers must have been there to appear to follow a rule, if it existed, requiring food to be provided with alcohol. An older lady who I assume was the owner approached me as I was leaving and said multiple angry sentences at me. I felt bad for just using her bathroom so I bought one of the snacks on the counter and possibly also a bott.e of water, as a way to compensate her for using her bathroom. But I can understand booth, restaurant, and tavern owners inhibiting non-customers from using their bathrooms. Another older lady who might have been just outside the shack wanted to know what language I spoke, but she asked in a more plesant manner. I replied "Anglishkai". She was surprised but maybe not astonished. She might have said "good luck" before she waved me away.

Another time while walking with others from the class, one of my classmates i was with claimed he saw a drunk young man sitting on a ledge throw a beer can that landed halfway between the drunk guy and us, and my classmate said he heard the drunk guy say "zhid", meaning jew. I didn't see or hear any of it. Another time while walking with a classmate, he pointed out a swastika painted on a sheet of particle board at a small construction site; the swastika was in a shade of grey paint, on top of or under another almost identical shade of gray paint, making it barely visible.