This summer I went from Pittsburgh to Milwaukee to a small country village in Austria then Ljubljana, Slovenia then Vienna to Prague to Berlin to Munich to Vienna then back home then Boston then home then northwest Michigan then East Troy, Wisconsin then India to Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Delhi then home then to Seattle to San Francisco to the Bay Area and then back to Pittsburgh as my new home base.

3 continents, 18 cities, 16 flights, 4 trains, and more unique bus, subway, and car rides than I could even retrace.

But through all this, I learned one thing that stood out as a lesson to keep:

The most precious things in life can all be found at home.

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Perhaps what struck me most during the tourist portion of my travels was how many of the tourist sites are monuments to great people. And from these stories I noticed a simple fact: those great people had to live and invest in one place for a long time.

Another class of frequently visited things while a tourist are impressive, gigantic, and historic buildings. But how do these buildings exist? Brick by brick, planned, then placed, then maintained by people invested in building up their physical community. People needing to work and invest in one place for a long time.

When you go anywhere, you must leave things behind, both at home and abroad. I think this is why tourists take so many photos - in hopes of somehow keeping the things they see and experience. But thousands of unsorted photographs of places half-remembered...at the end of the day, this I have found vain.

Our metaphorical bridges to these people and places aren't typically burned, but more often left to crumble from the winds and sands of time. We are left with too much distance and too many connections to maintain. The unnoticed crumbling bridges of weak connections to past people and places - this I too find vain.

To invest, dig deep, plant roots in one place for a long time - this I see as truly valuable, being able to make a difference not only in this life, but for the generations to come.

You can never invest or learn as much as you would like to about places or people you visit. In fact, I find myself often saying as I leave a host's home, "Ah, it was such a short visit, I hope to be back soon for a longer time!" But save for periods of months or years investing in a place, it always seems too short.

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It is a gift to travel in many ways, but travel for the sake of travel (how I define tourism) I've found as vain. Everything necessary for happiness and a full life can be found right where you are.

You don't need world travels to gain life experience, it's better to authentically engage with your environment no matter your location. I've found the deepest personal growth not from crossing seas, but crossing the boundaries of knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions that I didn't even know I had drawn for myself.

An example: even the central idea I present here didn't mainly come from my travels, it came from a book I read during travels:

It is praiseworthy for a religious man to go seldom abroad. Why would you see what you may not have? The desires of sensuality draw you abroad, but when the hour is past, what do you bring home, but a weight upon your conscience and distraction of heart?

A merry going forth brings often a sorrowful return, and a merry evening a sad morning.

Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis

Traveling for the sake of traveling is vain. Traveling, any kind of traveling, brings pain.

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I want to pause to emphasize that I am not calling all travel bad. For I have also seen short-term traveling experiences have a huge difference in my life.

When, then, to take up an opportunity to travel?

Here are the three main categories of the most satisfying and fulfilling traveling experiences I've had:

1. To visit close family or friends for mutual encouragement.
2. To visit someone you personally are connected to in order to assist them with pertinent needs they asked you to help with, that their community cannot meet without you.
3. To discover and dive into the daily life of a culture and worldview different than your own for an extended period of time (on the scale of months). Foreign culture cannot be absorbed in the typical "two weeks or less" trip.

Travel becomes not vain when there is a deeper purpose besides vacationing or sight-seeing. Ultimately, the aims of rest and beauty in life should be things consistently sourced from home, or near home, not abroad.

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If you should see all things before you at once, what would it be but a vain vision? What can you see abroad which you see not at home? Behold heaven and earth and the elements, for out of these are all things made.

Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis

How often I am tempted to believe that many of the things I can find abroad do not exist at home! But how wrong I am.

For really, I'm always quietly amazed in the simple fact that most all places in the world have trees, sand, soil, clouds, sun, air, and all people groups are made up of many similar emotions, desires, families, births, deaths, marriages, friendships, jobs, hobbies, successes, failures, and joys. Of all the peace and beauty of God, people, and nature, can't these things be known in our own surroundings? Can we not find these all of these essential things of life, the most profoundly valuable life-shaping and impactful things, in our homes, workplaces, or the natural environments in our locality? Many stories and adventures show a hero going far from home to make a significant achievement, but can't each of us discover our purpose right where we are?

Leave vain things to vain men, and mind the things which God has commanded you.

Remain with [Jesus] in your chamber, for you shall not elsewhere find so great peace.

Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis

Pieces of my heart are with family and friends all across this globe. Some call it beautiful, this dispersion. But perhaps they do not also see the pain of often far and thin connection.

And as a part of a generation often consumed with constantly changing jobs, moving city-to-city, always chasing where the grass is greener on the other side - I will never forget a valuable token of wisdom from a church brother:

"The grass is greener where you water it."

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Even with our interconnected world, no technology in the world can replace the experience of close friends warmly greeting one another in a simple day-to-day moment. No incredible sight can surpass the lasting pleasure of having a community where you live that you care about and in which you are making a tangible, satisfying difference.

For as exciting as traveling and being well-traveled may seem, you have no idea how much more excited I am right now to be back in one place for a long time.

And my goal isn't a monument, or even a building. I'm joyful right now for something much harder to see, something that no tourist can take a picture of, but my friends, family, and community can see, know, rejoice and be glad in.

It's my slow-growing roots in this place I now call home.