When I returned home, all I could think was, “How can I get back out there?”<\/p>\n
I had zero desire to get a 9-to-5 and be chained to a cubicle, but having a corporate job felt like the only “legitimate” path. <\/p>\n
So, I started applying for jobs and landed a music-publishing internship, which I hoped to turn into a longer-term career. To pay the bills, I bartended and worked the front desk at a boxing gym. <\/p>\n
As my days morphed into a blur of boxing gloves, Excel spreadsheets<\/a>, and J\u00e4gerbombs, my traveling dreams faded \u2014 and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit around the time my internship ended, I lost all three jobs in one fell swoop.<\/p>\n It was a tough pill to swallow, but it gave me something I hadn’t had in months: the time to rethink my career path and decide that I wanted to be a writer.<\/p>\n In October 2020, I hired a freelance writing coach to turn my dreams into a reality. As she taught me how to cold pitch, I started building a personal brand online, which brought in new clients.<\/p>\n By 2021, at 24, I could finally afford to travel.<\/p>\n My boyfriend of two years had no interest in a digital-nomad life. Rather than end things, we made it work our own way: I’d leave for one to three months at a time, return to NYC for a bit, and then head somewhere new.<\/p>\n My enthusiasm for travel didn’t last long<\/p>\n I first noticed some downsides to digital-nomad life in Colombia.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alice Lemee<\/p>\n At first, travel was addictive. I worked remotely while visiting a dozen countries \u2014 including Portugal, Guatemala, Brazil, Italy, and Croatia \u2014 all with my trusty MacBook and travel adapter in tow.<\/p>\n The first cracks appeared about a year in, during a two-month solo backpacking trip in Colombia. I’d found it difficult to make friends<\/a> the way I could at 22, partially because I was no longer participating in the binge-drinking backpacking culture. (I now had to work the next day!)<\/p>\n While everyone would be socializing at the hostel \u2014 ice-cold To\u00f1as in hand \u2014 I’d be in my pajamas, hiding behind the curtain of my top bunk bed.<\/p>\n One morning, as I climbed down the ladder to go on a run, my bare foot nearly planted into someone’s stale fries and ketchup that they’d drunkenly abandoned. I started counting down the days until I could leave Medell\u00edn.<\/p>\n Bali was beautiful, but the time difference made it tough to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alice Lemee<\/p>\n Although I was over hostel life, I still wanted to travel. So, I then decided to switch things up and head to Bali, where I rented a villa for a few months with two other women.<\/p>\n As beautiful as Bali was, my experience there wasn’t a great one. The 12-hour time difference made it difficult to work; I often had to take client calls at 10 p.m. or 6 a.m.<\/p>\n I remember spending a lot of time by myself. Don’t get me wrong: I had wonderful conversations with strangers<\/a>, where we’d spill our biggest secrets and insecurities. It was the kind of wild intimacy, though, that you only have with someone you know you’ll never see again.<\/p>\n I missed my family. I missed my boyfriend. That June, I decided to return to New York City<\/a> for good.<\/p>\n Up until that point, I viewed my relationship with NYC almost as a situationship. I was never fully committed, which (probably) explains why I didn’t feel at ease there.<\/p>\n What would happen if I gave the city my full attention?<\/p>\n After replanting my roots in New York, the city feels like home again<\/p>\n I still love exploring new places, but I’m glad I now have a home base.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alice Lemee<\/p>\n I decided to spend that first summer back in New York saying “yes” to every invite. This led to entrepreneur meetups in Williamsburg and grabbing pho with new friends in FiDi.<\/p>\n Over the next few months, I fell back in love with New York City.<\/p>\n Because I wasn’t constantly leaving, I could actually invest in my relationships, too. In October 2025, I moved into an apartment in Brooklyn with my boyfriend.<\/p>\n I’ve traded eating alone in an Airbnb for coming home to my boyfriend’s cooking. I’ve swapped drunken hostel-bar chats with 20-somethings I’d never see again for heart-to-hearts with my childhood friends.<\/p>\n I still love to explore new places, but my days of one-way flights<\/a>, hostel hopping, and bunk beds are over.<\/p>\n For a long time, I traveled because it made me feel alive. As much as I liked coming home to New York, it was always followed by this unsettling feeling that the life I was “meant” to be living was somewhere else.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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