Do I Miss Home? The Honest Answer After Choosing a Nomadic Life

People ask me this in a tone that’s usually half curiosity and half worry, like they’re testing the idea of nomadic life for themselves through my answer.

“Do you ever miss home?”

The honest answer is yes. I miss home. Amanda misses home too. I’m not embarrassed to admit it, and I don’t think anyone should be. 

Missing home doesn’t mean you failed at van life. It means you’re human, and it means you left something real behind.

Before the Road, Los Angeles Wasn’t Just a City, It Was a Whole Structure

When Amanda and I lived in Los Angeles, it was the structure that held our daily lives together for more than ten years.

We had our familiar routines, the kind you don’t appreciate until they’re gone. We knew which grocery store aisle had the exact brand Amanda liked. We had favorite coffee places where nobody needed to ask our order twice. 

Also, we had neighbors we recognized, even if we didn’t know them well. We knew which streets to avoid at rush hour, which park felt safe in the evening, which friends were always up for dinner, and which ones needed a week’s notice.

My work in IT wasn’t just a job either, it was a rhythm. Meetings, deadlines, client calls, project stress that built and faded in cycles. 

Even the stress was familiar. It was predictable in the way big-city life can be, where you complain about it but also rely on it because it gives your days a certain shape.

Our friends were there. Our coworkers were there. People we had watched grow, switch jobs, get married, move apartments, repeat the same city struggles. LA held all of that history in a way a new place can’t replicate instantly.

When you live in a place for a decade, you build a quiet relationship with it. The streets stop feeling like streets and start feeling like paths through your own life.

Leaving Felt Like Stepping Off a Moving Walkway

When we finally committed to van life, I thought the departure would feel more cinematic. I expected tears or excitement or some grand sense of transformation.

Instead, it felt like stepping off a moving walkway and realizing your feet have to learn a new pace.

We were excited, yes, but we were also calm. We packed carefully. We checked the van repeatedly. We made lists and then made new lists because our brains kept trying to control the unknown through planning. We told ourselves it would be fine, because on paper it was.

But emotionally, leaving a long-term home doesn’t always hit on day one. Sometimes it takes time for your body to realize what your brain has chosen.

The First Two Months Felt Like Freedom, and Then Homesickness Arrived

The first two months on the road were filled with novelty, which is the most powerful distraction in the world.

New places. New views. The thrill of waking up somewhere different. The satisfaction of realizing you can live with less. 

The small victories of figuring out how to cook in a tiny kitchen, how to organize a space that moves, how to find safe places to park, how to manage water, trash, laundry, and all the practical details that don’t show up in the glamorous version of van life online.

During those first weeks, we were too busy learning to miss anything.

Then one evening, about two months after we left LA, homesickness arrived in the quiet way it often does, not as a breakdown, but as a sentence.

We were parked somewhere calm, making a basic dinner, and Amanda said, almost casually, “I miss home.”

She didn’t cry. She just said it like she had been holding it in and finally decided it was safe to admit.

I didn’t tell her to look at the stars or be grateful or remember why we left. I just nodded and said, “Me too.”

What Missing Home Actually Means When You Live in a Van

Missing home isn’t just missing a physical house. At least for us, it wasn’t. It was missing:

• knowing where you’ll sleep every night without thinking
• having a reliable routine that doesn’t depend on weather or location
• being able to leave something on a counter and know it’ll still be there
• not having to plan simple things like water refills and trash disposal
• having the same faces around you week after week
• hearing your friends’ laughter in person, not through a phone speaker

It was also missing how easy everything used to be. Even hard days in LA had infrastructure holding them up. 

In van life, when you have a hard day, you still have to find a place to park, still have to eat, still have to manage the small tasks, because there’s no default system running quietly in the background.

Staying Connected by Phone Helps, But It’s Not the Same

We stayed in touch with our friends and family through our phones, and I’m grateful for that.

We had quick check-in calls, photos of birthdays we weren’t there for, or overn updates about jobs, relationships, and everyday life

A video call can keep you connected, but it can also make you realize what you’re missing, the casual presence, the ability to show up spontaneously, the comfort of sitting in the same room without needing to catch up because you’re already part of each other’s lives.

My advice is not to romanticize the phone connection. Use it, yes, but understand that it doesn’t replace proximity.

How to Prepare Mentally Before You Leave a Fixed Home

If someone asked me what to prepare for nomadic life, I would talk about water storage, first aid kits, and safe parking, but honestly, the most important preparation is mental.

Here are things I wish every new nomad accepted before they hit the road:

You will miss home at random times. Not only when you’re lonely, but sometimes when you’re happy. You’ll see something beautiful and suddenly wish someone from your old life could see it too.

Homesickness comes in waves. You don’t “solve” it once. It fades, returns, fades again.

Missing home doesn’t mean you chose wrong. It means you left something meaningful.

If you treat homesickness like a failure, you’ll make it heavier. If you treat it like a natural part of transition, it becomes something you can move through.

Amanda and I learned to say the feeling out loud instead of hiding it. Some nights, that was enough.

The Town That Made Me Understand Home Can Be Given

We’ve met many people on the road. Friendly conversations. Brief connections. Meals shared with strangers whose names we might never see again.

It happened in Joseph, Oregon, a small town near the Wallowa Mountains. We arrived without planning. 

One evening, after we had been there for a while, a few locals we’d met earlier in the week came by while we were parked. They brought bread. One brought soup.

We sat outside the van as the evening cooled down. The conversation moved slowly, like nobody needed to impress anyone. 

At some point, the local one looked at the van and said: “This is home for you now.”

What I’ve Learned About Home Since Then

We still miss LA. We still miss certain people. I still get waves of nostalgia when I smell something that reminds me of our old neighborhood, or when Amanda talks about friends she hasn’t hugged in years.

But I’ve also learned something that feels important. Home is also something you build through repetition, care, and connection.

It can be a shared meal with strangers who treat you kindly, a town where people remember your name after a few days, a quiet night in the van where everything feels safe and even a routine you create that doesn’t depend on a fixed address

So, Do I Miss Home?

Yes. I do. And I think I always will, but I’ve stopped seeing that as a problem.

Because missing home means our old life mattered. And finding home again, in a van, on unfamiliar roads, in conversations with strangers, means our new life matters too.