After spending a full year outside Canada, it feels so good to be back. Traveling is amazing, but coming back and feeling that sense of belonging is also pretty necessary. I couldn’t travel indefinitely and avoid Canada forever, I miss it too much.
If you’ve ever traveled the world for an extended period of time and just came back home, you might very well relate to this. There are so many things I missed about Canada!
1) Flushing toilet paper in the toilet
Half the world (and maybe even more) doesn’t flush toilet paper down the toilet. Instead, you have to put it in a garbage next to the toilet and after a few days, it starts to stink. The habit of flushing toilet paper comes back very easily when you can do it!
2) Grocery Stores Full of All Kinds of Food
This is something I missed especially after staying put for five months in Central America. San Juan Del Sur didn’t have mushrooms. I get that the climate wasn’t very mushrooms friendly, but it’s pretty basic, isn’t? I’m so glad that now I can buy 5 kinds of mushrooms at the grocery store, even though I don’t really need that kind of selection. It just makes cooking (and actually following a recipe instead of adapting it) a lot easier!
3) Hanging out with people we’ve known for more than a day
It’s actually pretty hard to make and keep friends on the road, so hanging out with old high school friends or family and chatting about the good old days is just so good for the soul. We don’t have to introduce ourselves all the time and try to explain what we do: these people just get us.

Image from amazon.com
4) All-Dressed Ruffle Chips
I’m just going to leave this here, because if you’re Canadian, this doesn’t need any explanation.
5) Home-cooked meals
Remember that amazing meat loaf your mom makes? Or that secret banana bread recipe your grandma hasn’t shared with you yet because she wants you to visit her instead? Well now, you can eat it all! And it’s amazing!
6) A Place To Call Our Own
Even though we’re not settling down, we have our own place on Chris’ farm and it feels so good to be able to move the furniture around and buy what we need to make it comfortable. When we rent Airbnb places, we just have to deal with what is already there. Being able to repaint the whole thing if we wanted to is awesome!
7) Playing Video Games
We don’t travel with a PS3 or a Xbox, so being home, plugging that machine in the TV and just playing those old games we used to play is so great! We’ve been able to play games on our computer while we were traveling, but sitting in front of the TV with a remote feels a lot better… A lot more like home 🙂