You know the feeling. Ten days into a trip, warm sunlight, a coffee you can't get at home, and suddenly you're browsing estate agent listings for Brisbane, Lisbon or wherever the holiday high has taken hold. Writer Anita Isalska knows it well — she's moved country three times from the UK, to France, Australia and the United States — and argues most of these urges are worth decoding rather than acting on.
Her latest trigger was Brisbane: a sunny Queensland capital with up to 300 days of sunshine a year, leafy parks minutes from the CBD, and the kind of holiday days built around hunting ube pavlova doughnuts, chasing the hottest sambal in Indonesian canteens, and evening 'mango runs' to the supermarket. Hard not to picture a life there.
But the reality of relocating, she writes, is paperwork, loneliness, cultural friction and a lot of resilience. Research on expats consistently shows people returning home because of isolation, homesickness, job struggles or living costs. Once the novelty fades, you're complaining about the traffic and the tourists like everyone else. Moving abroad often isn't trading up — it's trading one set of problems for another.
The more interesting question is what the fantasy is telling you. If Amsterdam trips feel invigorating, maybe what's missing is more coffee and weekend cycling — both doable anywhere. If hiking Slovakia's Tatras felt freeing, the takeaway might be long solo screen-free walks. If New Orleans was the highlight, perhaps the gap in your life is mischief and whimsy, not a Louisiana address.
Her argument lands with anyone who's returned from a trip full of resolve only to shrink back into routine by Monday. Travel strips away certainty — you walk in the rain, push open unmarked doors, live like time is short. The trick is treating that urgency as a diagnostic, then importing the habits rather than the postcode. Done well, the trip keeps paying off long after the tan fades.
Worth noting she isn't talking about genuine escape: for people fleeing danger, persecution or suffocating communities, relocating can be serious and necessary. Her point is aimed at the privileged daydreamer romanticising a 'new me' with a baguette in hand.