Prompt: For some people, no matter how much they love traveling, there’s always no place like home. Other travelers make their homes wherever they happen to be. Tell us about your home – where is it and why do you consider it your home?

If you missed my last post from the BootsnAll daily blogging challenge, you can read it here.

On my travels, I have met several fellow travellers who regale great stories of where they grew up, how they’ve had the same best-friends their whole life from primary school right through to the end of college and searching for their first jobs.

My life has told a slightly different story, and as such, I never really had a “home”.

Flickr source: Andrew & Suzanne

There was my childhood home, the farm I grew up on in Kerikeri, New Zealand; there was the trailer I lived in for a year at the back of my father’s workshop as a teenager; then there were the two houses in Perth, Western Australia that I lived in for 3-4 years before moving on to Canada for a student exchange programme.

Flickr source: eGuide Travel

There was my very first home of my own, the first house I bought in Perth. But, when I think of “home” while travelling, as somewhere I miss and feel home-sick about, I don’t really think of a particular location.

Of course, my home is, and will always be Australia; even if I lived a good 10 years of my life in the beautiful Northland of New Zealand. I was born in Australia, and I support Australia in all international sporting events (c’arn the Aussies!).

I guess, for the moment, I call home to Perth; the quiet little city on the West Coast. Not matched in kindness, beauty, or tranquility by any other city in Australia. I think you have to leave it to really appreciate it — ask any of my friends who have grown up there, and still live there, and they might say it’s the most boring place to live.

I guess its home because that’s where I spent my late teenage years, that’s where I own a house, that’s where most of my friends live, that’s where my family are. But I’ve spent the past 8 months wandering around in search of adventure, and a possible new home for the next chapter of my life. I haven’t found it yet …still searching.

Flickr source: Cromdia

At the moment I call my home Madrid, in Spain. I’m living here for 3 months during winter to study Spanish, and have a break from backpacking; its home in a physical sense, but I am still very much alien to the Spanish way of life. Sure, I speak Spanish (badly) daily, I have an Abono (monthly Metro pass) and ride the Metro in Madrid every day, I know where the good Tapas bars are, and I regularly go out to Disco’s to meet people, I steer away from the touristy areas, and I spend sunny afternoons lazing around in the parks, I take siesta almost daily; but it’s still not really home. The people I know here are new friends, but I still don’t know so many facets of the city – the best cafés, hairdressers, and bookstores.

I think it takes years for a place to become a home. Bonds made in long friendships, and hours spent walking the streets discovering the hidden treasures.

No matter where I travel, I will always prefer the hustle and bustle of city life, as much as the country is tranquil and beautiful, there just isn’t enough happening every day to keep my attention. We will see where I end up next.

Let me know in the comments what “home” means to you. Whether its your childhood home, or somewhere you’ve moved to and become an expat.

[box] Throughout the month of November, BootsnAll is inviting bloggers from around the world to join them in a daily blogging effort — the 30 Days of Indie Travel Project — designed to reflect on how our travel experiences over the last year – or whenever – have shaped us and our view of the world. Bloggers can follow the prompts as strictly or loosely as they like, interpreting them in various ways and responding via text, photos or video posted on their own blogs. [/box]