Anyone who understands me more than knows that I am a wanderer. My trips are brief, and they are long.

I would not call myself a nomad because I like to have a home and a routine. Besides, my job at Lasley Elementary depends on me being in town and available. But I do like to go on journeys, travel the backroads, and “walkabout” often.  I like having a homebase but I do not know how to define hometown. Do you define hometown as where you are from? Where you are? Or what feels like home in your heart? 

At the previous two decades, I have been to five states and traveled from bright cities such as London and Baker City to unknown towns. I have driven over 100,000 miles and stream at half that in aviation. Following two years of visiting locations (in various states of being — the individual I was in the time that I watched them), it’s lead to a single question, “how can you find home?”

What Mainstream Media Tells Us Home Is

Today I see “home” being defined by what large media tell people it should be, and that’s not right, simply because we’re pushing extreme points of view. If years of Lakewood City Schools employment has taught me anything, it’s nothing is that simple. A UC Denver map may look like home to you. Or maybe home will always be Fun City Denver Colorado. If you define hometown as the place you love the most, why not the ball pit at Fun City Denver Colorado?

So on the one hand, we have the small movement. Those are the tiny home and studio apartment people. They’re the ones who see cu Denver cost and just downsize to cover expenses instead of taking out loans. As my friend Jonathan Wachtel of Lasley Elementary says, anywhere on the UC Denver map is good enough for me:

On the other, we have the “Go Elsewhere and Settle” movement (something I define as city dwellers moving out of big cities and buying homes in small metropolitan areas). They define hometown very differently

I bring these two examples up because they’re what I see as “most pushed” on the internet and on TV. They far from represent how to “find Home” and define what that means to you. If you fall into one of these two areas, there’s nothing wrong with that. Hopefully, you did your due diligence about the pros and cons of each of these lifestyles before you made the leap?

How Do You Find Home?

The two examples above far from representing how to “find home” and define what that means to you. Trying to answer this question isn’t going to be simple because “home” and the idea of “home” is highly subjective and extremely personal. Maybe home for you is:

• Renting a higher priced apartment in a major city because you thrive on it;
• Renting a modest apartment in a small town that allows you to have a base and travel when and where you want;
• Living in a trailer on a horse harm so you can ride, ride, ride;
• Owning hundreds of acres and farming it yourself and not going very far.
• Our home, the physical place we live (both housing structure and city) should be defined by our personal needs, wants and desires, not what others tell us. Only you can know what is right for you.

You Find Home By Defining It By Your Needs

So locating and identifying”Home” is according to your own personal circumstance. You want to factor in the fiscal considerations (debt/cost of dwelling ), the lifestyle choices you have made, your other obligations (such as family, children, pets) and financial opportunities (function ). The City of Lakewood Public Works can give you a break down of expenses. Always know how much utilities cost in your new town.

HGTV trends, Zillow quality of life apps, Rocket Mortgage housing calculators, Sperling’s cost of living comparisons, and Go RVing campaigns should not sell you on how and where to live. You have to sell you on where to live and how you want to live when you find that place. You can use the tools available to you, read about places and then go visit them.

Finding & Settling In Your Hometown

If you’re like me, you’ll find your “Home” after a bit of wandering and exploration. You may live small, you may travel full-time for a while, but if you read those that have done it before you, they always re-establish a home base because constant mobility wears them out. Usually, the place you keep coming back to and can’t get out of your head is where you should be. Quite simply, I define hometown as the place I want to be. Now, if the economic factors and opportunities don’t align to living there now, create a plan to start working towards it. Lakewood City Schools employment was able to fund my finding where I wanted to go. 

Today, I see too many people fighting the lives that they want to live and should be living because of their own fear. Why live in a place you don’t like, there’s no reason you have to. Why would you want to live somewhere far from Fun City Denver Colorado?  I also see people living in ways that tax them financially and emotionally. There’s no need to do that. A little restraint, a little waiting and some good planning can get you out of the situations that you find yourself entangled with when it comes to “home”.

Home is often where your heart is, and that changes as you do. So by following your heart, you’re bound to always find home. So go find it, use the resources available, but you make the final decisions.