The Portable Home: Finding Anchors in a Sea of Change
Travel is often marketed as the joy of constant discovery. We are told to "live like a local," to immerse ourselves completely in the new, the foreign, and the exotic.
But here is the truth that digital nomads rarely admit: Constant discovery is exhausting.
When everything is new—the language, the currency, the traffic laws, the humidity—your brain is running on high alert 24/7. You are processing a million micro-decisions just to buy groceries or cross the street. It is thrilling, yes. But it is also a recipe for burnout.
Psychologists call this Cognitive Load. In Canada, my brain runs on efficient subroutines. I know how to do things, everyone speaks the same language as me. Everything is easy.
Here, nothing is automated. Every interaction requires active processing power. Just buying a few bottles of Coke Zero involves an exchange in a language I am only just learning. “Tarjeta?” “Does she mean the store’s discount card, or is she asking if I am paying with a credit card?” This sort of stress hits you every time you leave the house - nothing is exactly familiar, nothing is like what you grew up with.
That low-level hum of stress isn't fear—it's your CPU overheating because you have too many tabs open.
To survive the "Digital Monarch" lifestyle long-term, you don't just need a passport. You need an anchor. You need a piece of "home" that you can pack in your suitcase. Or maybe something that is already in your new hometown.
The Costco Factor
When we were deciding where to plant our flag for the winter months, we had a map full of tropical options. We looked at beaches, we looked at rental prices, and we looked at safety. I looked at scuba diving. We considered travel convenience.
But there was another factor that weighed heavily in favor of Cancun, one that might sound ridiculous to the purist traveler: Costco.
I love Mexican food. I have developed a deep appreciation for Arrachera (skirt steak) and carnitas. The food culture here is incredible. Some will tell you that Cancun isn’t a food city, that it isn’t old enough to have a real food culture of its own. I say - so what? They have absorbed the food from the entire country. You can find fantastic dishes from all across Mexico.
But sometimes, on a Tuesday night after a hard day of work, I don't want to navigate the cultural nuances of a local carnicería. I don't want to guess. I want a thick, familiar, USDA Prime Ribeye. I want to walk into a warehouse that smells exactly like the warehouse in Canada, buy the same Kirkland paper towels, and feel, for just an hour, that the world is predictable.
Ahhh, home.
Costco isn't just a store for us. It is a diplomatic outpost of the familiar. It’s a reset button for my brain. I will go there to buy one thing, and spend half an hour wandering the aisles, for a moment soaking in the familiar. But sometimes we all need more. We needed an anchor for the soul.
The Thread of Continuity
While Costco handles the logistical comfort, I need something else for the mental quiet.
For me, that anchor is painting.
I have been painting since I was a child. It is a thread that runs through every stage of my life. When I stand in front of a canvas, the chaos of the outside world—the honking taxis, the humidity, the foreign language—disappears.
The smell of oil paint is the same in Quintana Roo as it is in Ontario. The feel of the brush hitting the canvas doesn't change with the latitude. The challenge of capturing a likeness or the balance of a minimalist composition remains the constant.
It creates a "Portable Home."
I might be painting in a room with tile floors instead of carpet, and the light coming in the window might be brighter and harsher than the northern sun, but the act itself is the continuity. It reminds me that while my geography has changed, I haven't.
Find Your Control Variable
In science, you have variables and you have controls. If you change every single variable at once, the experiment explodes.
Moving to a new country changes almost every variable in your life. To keep the experiment from failing, you need a control variable. You need one thing that remains exactly the same, no matter where you are.
For me, it’s the easel and the canvas.
For you, it might be the gym. The weight of a 45lb plate is the universal language.
It might be a jigsaw puzzle.
It might be your faith community.
It might be a musical instrument.
It doesn't matter what it is. It matters that it connects you to your past self. It matters that it is a space where you are already an expert, where you don't have to learn new rules.
The Trade-Off
We move abroad to expand our horizons. We want the adventure. But we are not machines.
If you try to reinvent 100% of your life the moment you land, you will break. Keep 10% for yourself. Keep the painting, keep the puzzle, or go buy that Ribeye.
The exotic is beautiful, but the familiar is what keeps you sane enough to enjoy it.
