Hi Obliguhl, it's been a while since your post in this thread and I wonder how you're doing and if you've been traveling some more.
I spent the last 8 years being an ex-pat working in different countries - it's not exactly the same as traveling but you get to hang out with all the people that are, so you get that same vibe of excited and open people who are interested in socializing and meeting new people. But even though I was pretty much stuck in one place for 1-2 years at a time the type of place prevented one from actually making really deep connections to others. People come and go at such a rate that it gets tiring to even remember their names. While you get to talk to tons of people, you have pretty much no one to ask to help with something like moving or someone to call at night when you're feeling bad... ex-pat communities are quite strange and can be very superficial.
My personal feeling was that after 8 years I was ready to find a place to really call home again, but I wouldn't have been ready after 7. I don't even know if I'm really ready, since I only just arrived back in Europe. I just felt - what you expressed in your post as well - traveling forever can't be the answer. But living just anywhere and doing just anything is also not it. There are plenty of places I would not want to live (again) for various reasons, and from what I've learned about myself and the world the place that I wanted to choose for living had a few requirements to fulfill.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that traveling and living in foreign countries for an extended period can be very educational and useful for our personal development. Sometimes you will encounter new opportunities or new ideas and they will lead to a completely new life, perhaps somewhere new. What you call home now doesn't have to be your forever home, but it can be maybe, depending on what you learn about yourself and the world in the long run.
For me, every time my contract would come to an end I would weigh out my desire to continue on out there and the desire to go home. For 7 years there was a strong desire to be "far away" from where I came from. But during the last year I started feeling really tired and frustrated with things, and really wanted to have something solid, rather than another temporary home. I felt like all my creative energy was being blown away by the fact that I couldn't invest it in any long-term projects, since who knew where I'd be next year... But of course if I'd go back to living in a city I'd have a worse problem to face: None of the long-term projects I'd like to engage in could be realized there... so really traveling/living abroad helped me to refine some of my ideas and helped me choose where I'd potentially like to live.
By the way, if you can find a job to work online, you can live almost anywhere in the world. I met a lot of people doing just that in places like Thailand, Bali, Hong Kong etc.
