💼Stop kidding yourself, you're never moving away from the United States

Instead, see more of the world and then come back and make your home a better place

It seems like every U.S. presidential election cycle ends with a new round of mass delusion in which people discuss leaving the country for good and moving to some international destination. But let's get real, fellow Americans. None of you are doing that. Almost literally.

As life-long travelers, my wife and I have spent decades discussing, debating, and then actually following through on what a future life outside the United States might look like. And while there's a lot that goes into that decision, it's not difficult to frame in a way anyone will understand and most will agree with. There are extreme choices on the far ends of this spectrum. And then there is the more comforting middle ground, where most--statistically, almost all--people will land.

And that middle ground is that you will stay right where you are and travel when possible. Maybe you'll even spend a few weeks--or, gasp, months--outside the country. But nothing is permanent. You will eventually go crawling back--or, more likely, running back--to the warm embrace of the family, friends, traditions, cultural norms, and all the other familiar comforts that make that place your home. And your home, for better or worse, but mostly better, is the United States.

Things change, it's a fact of life. And sometimes change accelerates. In just the past few years, Stephanie and I have experienced incredible change. We're closing in our three-year anniversary of owning an apartment in Mexico City. Our oldest child graduated from college and has a great job. Our youngest is poised to graduate in the spring. Both of our kids live out of state. We downsized from a (massive) house, spent one year in a (tiny) apartment, and then started renting a (slightly bigger) condo. As I write this, we're in our place in Mexico City for what should be about three months, our longest trip yet.

But did you notice what I did there? Yes, we consider Mexico City a home, of course, we literally own an apartment here. We have friends here, good friends, and places we love. We love it so much we wrote a book and we want to share that love with anyone who will listen. But this is still a trip. Our home, such as it is, is back in Pennsylvania. In the United States. Where we also have friends, and places we love. And family. And decades of experiences. Jobs and retirement plans. It's where we grew up, and where our kids grew up. We have traditions, especially around holidays, birthdays, other events. We have lives.

This confuses matters. Of course it does. No one ever said life would be easy or that every question would have a single obvious answer. There's a new problem waiting around every corner. You either adapt or you don't.

We were hanging out with friends here in Mexico City six months ago or so, I can't recall. They were curious why we didn't just move here. "I have friends and family," I replied, which felt obvious enough. To which one of them responded, "Everyone has friends and family, Paul."

Yes. Yes, they do.

There is a delicate line between doing what you want to do and doing what's best, not just for you, but for those you care about. When we started spending weeks in Europe in the early 2000s on home swaps, it went so well that I imagined extending these trips by one week each summer. But when we booked a four-week trip for the following summer, it was too much for the kids. Too much time away from friends. Too much time in cathedrals. Just ... too much. Our daughter had a meltdown. And we adjusted. We stuck to three weeks after that.

Flash forward to today and that same daughter, now an adult, burst into tears when Stephanie told her we would be in Mexico for about three months. As noted, she lives out of state, but she can visit us easily, either by flying or, as she prefers, driving, even though that takes several hours. One of our goals with this place in Mexico was to make sure the kids understood that the miles would not result in a meaningful separation, that we aren't gone. They can visit whenever they want, and we'll pay for that. (In fact, they will visit during this trip.) And they can come here on their own, with their friends, of course. We always plan to be home during the holidays--we have big Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year celebrations with friends and family there--as we did this past year. But we're still struggling to figure out a reasonable schedule for splitting our time between here and the U.S.

But that was always the goal. Always. Not leaving the U.S. or moving to some other place. But splitting time.

20 years ago, we thought the other place would be somewhere in Europe. Preferably France, to my mind, and specifically Paris. My wife might prefer Barcelona more. We both love Lisbon and Berlin, too, and there are many places in Europe that we could see living, if temporarily. But here we are, in Mexico City. We've told that story many times. Life takes you where it takes you sometimes. We didn't just adapt. We fell in love.

But like you and just about everyone else, we're not leaving the United States, not permanently. We're not afraid of the unknown--I assume what we've done here helps prove that. As do the two decades or more of routine travel to Europe every year, with the kids for those summer home swaps and as a couple so many other times. Among our friends and family, we're the extreme ones. Many never understood what drove us to take all those trips, and most still don't understand what we're doing here in Mexico. These things are either obvious or not, I guess. But they are difficult to explain to the confused.

Years ago, I was sitting in a conference room at work with a friend/coworker before anyone else had arrived. We were both working remotely at the time, and we would travel to the company's offices several times each year. That morning we arrived early, we were catching up, and he asked me about the home swaps and other European travel. As people do. This kind of thing is fascinating to others, but they always come out on one side or the other: They either want to do the same thing, and badly, or they could never imagine doing it, ever. Then the conversation took a weird turn.

"What do you expect your kids to do?" he asked, "thank you for bringing them to Europe all the time?"

This troubled me. I loved this guy. I still do. But this question showed me he was missing the point entirely.

"No," I replied. "I expect them to be better people. I expect them to handle things better if they experience something different from what they're used to back home. I don't expect them to thank me, and I don’t need that. Them being better people will be thanks enough."

Oddly, our kids have since thanked us. Both love to travel, and both love to experience different things. Both are open-minded. They are good people who treat others with respect. Here's the thing. We all love our kids, we have to. But I like my kids. I like to be with them. I like who they are as people. And that is one of the most fulfilling things that will ever happen to you as a human being. I see my flaws in my children and it makes me sad. But I see them being them, being good, and I beam. It's the best.

I view the United States the same way. I'm proud of my country sometimes, but also sad and confused sometimes. I see things I love, and I see things that I wish were better. In my experience, the people who love their home the most blindly are the ones who have never left it. The experience you gain being away informs the love you have for that home. Many decades in, I still love the United States. But it's a more mature love than some idiot driving around with an American flag mounted in the back of his pickup truck. I don't have to wear it on my sleeve. It's just there, earned.

We're all different, but we're all somewhere on that spectrum, too. On the extreme ends, you'll find the people who will never leave and then those who will never come back. Neither is a mainstream choice, but there are always outliers. We know a couple in Pennsylvania in which the husband has never been more than 150 miles from where he grew up, or so he says. And we know a couple who spend most of the year internationally, moving from place to place. These are both unusual choices that some may describe as extreme. Whatever, neither option is right for most people.

So please, yes, do go out and see the world. Start small if you have to, but experience something different from your normal day-to-day. And then keep it up. Traveling, like kids, is both the best of the best and the worst of the worst. But don't let the bad experiences drag you down. Find your middle ground, your balance. It's in there somewhere, in that spectrum. It is most definitely not at the extremes. And while leaving the U.S. permanently may seem attractive in the moment, this is a life decision, not an impulse buy.

So let's just be honest with ourselves. We're not leaving. We are traveling. Leaving the United States permanently will not improve the country. More importantly, it will not improve you. But traveling will make you a better person. And if more people from the U.S. traveled, domestically or abroad, it would be a better place for everyone. Because you cannot experience the rest of the world and not be changed. And that's the kind of change we all need.