You can now view this months Newsletter Nov for recent inspiration and information.

I have also just booked my tickets to return home to New Zealand after Christmas. This has given me an opportunity to reflect on the nomadic lifestyle, having a home in a country not of my birth and the struggle many people have in accepting why nomads can't stay in one place for long. Here is the outcome of those thoughts:

Calling the nomad home Pico Iyer, Travel Author, asks; “where is home?” “is it where you’re born, where you live, the place you love most? Or is it more than a physical place?” I agree with Iyer when he says “home is more about soul than soil”. It is what makes you become who you are and it’s what you carry inside your true self. It’s where you feel alive and the place you most want to be and that can be many places.

I am a Nomad. I don’t stay in one place for long and have loved to travel ever since my first trip backpacking to Australia in my early twenties. I fell in love with the freedom and adventure and have been doing it ever since. I am at ease living out of a suitcase. I don’t feel the need to have an address. I love the wonder and excitement of travel, different cultures and new people. It’s not that I am lost, nor am I searching for something I just love this way of life, the road is my home.

The wanderlust, it livens my soul. I am captivated by the endless possibilities, the sounds, sights, tastes and smells. I’m like a bird that needs to fly, I follow the sun and migrate when it turns cold. I feel unsettled if I spend too long in one place. I find my inspiration flows when I’m on the road, it aids my creativity and makes my heart sing. I also learn so much from different cultures and the people within them.

I may touch down and take rest in many countries but it’s unlikely I’ll stay. My feet will itch and the road will call me once again. Like a bird I relish my freedom to fly, don’t try to clip my wings or keep me in a cage. It’s a life of adventure, a life many dream of but few live.

I spend time revisiting my birthplace to see family and friends who are dear to me. But there’s one place in particular I always return to. They call it the land of the long white cloud. It is a place of stunning natural beauty, mighty mountains, clear lakes that shine like jewels, rugged coast line. Picture postcards views. A place where there are few questions and the answer is always ‘no worries’. How I miss the big green spaces, the clean air and the slower pace of life. I long to return to a place where I’m not the only one that says ‘Ay’ after a sentence!

I have no physical place to call home there, no family ties yet something keeps tugging at my heart. A light burns bright in my soul when I hear the accent or see pictures of its landscape. I have travelled to many places yet the natural beauty here is something I’ve never seen repeated. But it’s much more about what the eyes see. The heart feels the tug, the pull towards home. The soul feels the connection to a land that is not of my birth and when I am here I am home. I can’t guarantee I’ll stay but I am always sure I’ll be back.

When I leave I carry a piece of you within me. When I return that piece becomes complete. As I slip off my jandals and walk out onto the beach, my feet fit the earth beneath them like they were made to walk here.

As I listen to the Tui and walk with the Totara, my heart sings and my soul breathes a sigh of relief. From the tip of Reinga to the wild, west coast, through the mountainous desert in the shadow of mighty Ruapehu and the stillness of the vast Lake Taupo, this is where I belong.

Aotearoa has my heart, there is an unseen tie that keeps me coming back. It’s a place I miss when I am not there and a place that will always occupy a piece of my soul. Never forget how blessed you are if you call this place your home.