I woke to the muffled screech of seagulls, fighting over a morsel on the hotel balcony. I woke on a couch in Bologna, a seven yr old hovering to my left, a little plastic case in his hand. I woke to the sound of two Italian teenagers getting ready for school, their mother shouting after them down the hall. I woke on a cot at a circus commune, I woke in the a hostel dorm, I woke once again in the guest room of friends.

Why travel leaves me feeling particularly alive is a hard thing to pinpoint, but after this, my last stint of solo travel before fatherhood, I think one of the answers might lie in those first moments of the morning, when one's surroundings are still a surprise and the day is given its frame. There is no overstating the power of waking up in an unfamiliar context. This is especially true when that context is the home of an actual person, rather than the smooth, expressionless container of a hotel. The magic of couchsurfing remains, mysteriously undiminished.

of course, this trip was not couchsurfing in the traditional sense. In fact, when I tried to couchsurf for my last stop, my requests were met with regrets. "I am deep sorry" wrote the old Turkish engineer. "No room, good luck" wrote the Japanese high school teacher. Instead, I surfed a different wave: existing friends. Childhood friends, whose couches I'd surfed in middle school, old friends, who started out as hosts or roommates in Italy back in my twenties, and new friends, who knew me just well enough to take a chance and invite me to visit for the first time.

On the train to Turin

Several years ago, my cousin asked me if I was going to write a book about working on the road. I told her that I hadn't really considered it, but the idea, once suggested, gathered a little momentum over the ensuing months. I jotted down some notes, gathered a few similar sounding volumes to see how it should be done, and then, having properly overwhelmed myself, put the whole thing to bed. I had a hard time seeing how I could contribute. Digital nomadism (the ostensible frame) is so common these days, and changes so quickly that even those out there tapping away in hostel lobbies and coffee shops right now wouldn't be doing the thing justice.

I was wrong, of course. I should have written the book.

In the life where that book was written, the story of this trip could be its sequel. Here I am, suspended between the freewheeling life of an itinerant computer worker and the extraordinary adventure of parenthood. And yet ... what has actually changed? And beyond that, capturing what travel in 2022 looks like has value in its own right, if only to collect some details that might distinguish it from her first foray out in to the wider world.

Ah well.