About
We Traded a House Full of Belongings for Two Carry-On Bags
We’re Simcha and Carla, and several years ago we did something that, for most of our lives, would have sounded a little improbable. We sold our home, let go of most of what we owned, packed what remained into two carry-on bags, and began spending much of each year traveling through the world.
Making Room for Something Else
It wasn’t an escape from a life we disliked. We had a good life, people we loved, meaningful work, and all the things that gather around us over time. But eventually we began asking a different question: What do we want to do with the years ahead of us while we still have the health, curiosity, and freedom to choose?
For us, the answer kept coming back to travel.
Not the kind where you race through ten cities in twelve days and come home exhausted. We wanted to stay somewhere long enough for it to become real. So we began spending weeks rather than days in one place—walking the same streets, returning to the same cafés, shopping in neighborhood markets, and slowly recognizing some of the people around us.
When a Place Becomes Real
Of course, we visit the great museums, cathedrals, ruins, and landmarks. But some of our favorite memories have come from much smaller moments: a conversation with someone on the street, an early morning walk before a town wakes up, a market filled with people simply going about their day, or an evening watching life unfold around a harbor.
We’ve come to believe that a place reveals itself differently when we stop hurrying through it. The famous sights tell us something about its history, but everyday life tells us something about its soul.
Photography and writing have become part of the way we experience all of this. Photography slows us down and makes us look more carefully. Writing gives us a chance to think about what a place has stirred in us after we’ve moved on.
That’s how The Wonder of Wandering came to be.
When Travel Became Something Larger
It began as a place to share our travels and photographs, but over time we realized the stories we most wanted to tell weren’t simply about where we had been. Travel became a doorway into larger questions—about aging, beauty, simplicity, community, kindness, belonging, curiosity, and what it means to make good use of the life we’ve been given.
The places provide the setting.
Life is usually the larger subject.
Travel has also reminded us again and again how much human beings have in common. Languages, religions, foods, customs, and ways of life may differ, but people everywhere love their families, care for one another, endure loss, celebrate, worry, laugh, and try to build lives that mean something to them.
Your Dream Doesn’t Have to Look Like Ours
The more of the world we see, the harder it becomes to think of people simply as others.
We’re also very aware that this life isn’t for everyone. We have no interest in suggesting that people should sell their homes and begin wandering the world with two carry-on bags. That could create a great deal of unnecessary confusion.
The larger idea is much simpler.
There comes a time when it’s worth asking whether the life we’re living still fits the person we’ve become. The answer doesn’t have to involve travel. Someone else’s dream may look entirely different.
Ours happened to involve two carry-on bags and a great many train stations.
And we’re still learning as we go.
Still Learning as We Go
Travel hasn’t given us all the answers. If anything, it has made us more aware of how much we don’t know. But it has made us more curious, more open, and more grateful for the enormous variety of ways human beings have found to live.
Perhaps that’s what wandering has given us most:
a wider view, and a deeper appreciation for this remarkable world and the people who share it with us.