The problem was that I came home to what was quite often an empty house. My parents left for the Mediterranean five days after I got home, and my brother spent most of his time flipping burgers at McDonald’s. It was too late for me to get a job, and I ended up spending my days alone while all my friends worked full-time. Nights were the worst, but at the same time I found a sort of comfort in allowing myself to sink into slight depression as I thought of what I would be doing if I were still in New Zealand. Like the cars, I looked at it as a way of holding onto a world that was on the other side of the globe. If I still could conjure up feelings of loneliness and yearning on a nightly basis, then I was nowhere near ready to let go. And in a way I felt it gave me a sort of distinction because no one else among my friends had the blues because none of them had gone away. After all, Americans don’t really like to go beyond their stars and stripes — I always felt like I was the exception.

Wherever I went while abroad — restaurants, hostels, tourism sites — it seemed everyone commented on the fact that it was surprising to see a single American female doing the whole backpacking thing. I’m not sure why Americans in general don’t travel. I don’t think it’s just that the United States is quite far away from New Zealand. That didn’t stop the many English people I met, and they’re pretty far away, too. It seems Americans have some inherent fear or bewilderment with traveling that prevents them from taking more than two steps away from their doors, and the farthest they’ll go is some resort destination like Wisconsin Dells.

The depression gradually abated. I came back to school, met new people and started going out again. I stopped working on my travel scrapbook on an obsessive, daily basis. I put away my green notebook next to the rest of my travel journals. I even managed to delete the last batch of pictures from my camera.

It seems Americans have some inherent fear or bewilderment with traveling that prevents them from taking more than two steps away from their doors.

But some things haven’t gone away yet, and I have a feeling they’ll last until the next time I’m in the Southern Hemisphere. I still get annoyed with pennies — New Zealand and Australia got rid of them recently and now use a rounding system, a system I find makes so much more sense than stuffing wallets and pockets full of the copper discs. I still want to write dates with the day first, then the month. I still perk up when I hear anything near an Aussie or Kiwi accent. I still gaze up at the night sky hoping to find the Southern Cross. I can still close my eyes and put myself back on the boat slowly making its way through Milford Sound — pristine teal water, perfectly clear sky, rugged, snow-capped peaks rising directly from the water, casting shadows in the bright sunlight. In my mind, as I look upon Mitre’s Peak — named so because it looks like a bishop’s hat — I think that THIS is why I came to New Zealand. This is why I spent thousands of dollars I don’t have, coming back in debt to my parents. This is why I traveled alone in a foreign country — just to be able to look on such a perfect natural landform with nothing standing in my way. To look on something so beautiful that you forget to think lest it would disrupt your sensory intake.

I’m in love with this country. Everywhere I go, every road I’m on, everything I see makes me fall deeper in love.

I make a pact to myself as I stand hanging over the rail of the tour boat that’s costing me $100 to look upon these fjords at the southern tip of the southern island. I’m going to come back someday. It won’t be the same — I may be with a boyfriend or a family or alone as a retired journalist taking one last world fling — but in a way it almost doesn’t need to be. The country — so far removed from the vast human civilizations — isn’t going to change much. The things that led me there in the first place will eventually bring me back again.

This story was originally published on Supraterranean in August 2008.