Can somewhere become home even when you know you’ll leave?
When I first arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, I stepped into something unfamiliar, not quite sure what to expect. But I knew one thing: I was here for just a semester. I had an apartment, a class schedule, and a return flight home. I was studying in Stockholm, but Austin, Texas, was my true home.
Then, somewhere along the way, this started to get a little more complicated.
I remember vividly the first time the words “I’m going home” left my mouth, instead of the usual “back to where we’re staying.” When I realized I was talking about my apartment in Stockholm, I paused. When did I start calling this place home?
My first couple of weeks in Stockholm felt like being a visitor in a place I was supposed to call home. I had to think about which trains to take to school, figure out where to buy groceries, learn my way around my neighborhood, and constantly check where I was going next.
Now, I don’t think about these things anymore. I know my way around. I have places I recognize and routines I don’t have to think about. I know my favorite spot to grab fika — a Swedish coffee break — and study, my usual evening walk route, and the calm of coming back to my apartment at the end of the day and having dinner with my roommates. None of these things felt important when I first arrived, but now I think they’re exactly what has made Stockholm feel like “home.”
I’ve also started noticing the differences between visiting a place and actually living there. When you’re visiting somewhere, you tend to notice what makes it exciting: the views, the landmarks, the places you want to photograph. Living somewhere means getting to know the less exciting parts, too.
Grocery shopping, doing laundry, taking the same train you’ve taken a hundred times, walking down the street to sort your recycling in the cold. Somehow, I’ve come to realize these ordinary moments are what make a place start to feel like yours. That’s why the idea of having two homes has felt so strange to me.
Austin is still my home, and this hasn’t changed, but Stockholm has started to feel like home too, even though I know I’m only here for one semester. That’s something I’ve slowly come to realize — home doesn’t necessarily have to mean permanent.
A place can become important to you while you’re still in the middle of experiencing it. You don’t have to wait until you’ve left somewhere to realize how much it means to you.
I still have time left in Stockholm. There are still places I haven’t been, foods I haven’t tried, and ordinary days I haven’t lived yet. I’m not ready to turn this experience into a reflection on something that’s already over. Knowing I won’t be here forever makes me value every moment, good or bad, because when I am gone, I will yearn for the memories I’ve created here.
For now, I’m still here. I’m still taking the metro to class with my friends, still discovering parts of the city and beyond its borders, still building routines, and still figuring out what it means to have a life somewhere that I know isn’t permanent. I appreciate all these moments, and I’m excited for the moments yet to come.
So, the question that I found myself pondering over repeatedly at the beginning of my time here is slowly being answered: Which place is my home, Stockholm or Austin? I can now ground myself when I feel myself falling into this thought spiral.
Maybe I don’t need to decide which place is “home.” Stockholm doesn’t have to replace home for it to become one. Maybe, for this chapter of my life, home can be both where I came from and where I am now.
This blog was contributed by Lila Svoboda, Global Ambassador for Fall 2026. Lila is a College of Liberal Arts first-year participating in the Take the World by the Horns program in partnership with DIS Abroad in Stockholm, Sweden.
