There Was Nowhere to Go but Everywhere
by Guest Blogger, Daisy Holiday
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
-Jack Kerouac
Apparently, there’s a gene that some people have that makes them restless Scientists sometimes call it the “wander gene”—a genetic variation linked to curiosity movement, and a drive to explore new places. Whether that science is fully settled or not, anyone who has it knows the feeling instantly.
It’s that quiet restlessness that shows up when you’ve stayed in one place too long. That itch to go somewhere—anywhere—just to see what’s out there.
For some of us, it’s not really about the destination.
It’s about the movement.
I’ve always been on the move. Since graduating college, I’ve moved more than twenty times. I actually stopped counting after twenty because it started sounding ridiculous when people asked. Cities, apartments, houses, different states—if there was an opportunity to pack up and start somewhere new, I usually took it.
About eight years after college, I eventually landed in Georgia. And while I’ve stayed there longer than anywhere else, that restless energy never really went away.
Even now, if I haven’t traveled in a while, I can feel it building.
It starts as a subtle feeling—like something inside me needs fresh air. A change of scenery. A reminder that the world is bigger than my current routine.
Eventually that feeling becomes impossible to ignore.
And funny enough, I’m writing this from an airplane.
Tomorrow I’ll be in Arizona—heading out to ride horses through Saguaro National Park and then hiking rim-to-river in the Grand Canyon.
And if I’m being honest, I’m not entirely sure if it’s the destination I’m most excited about. It might just be the feeling of going.
That moment when you leave the familiar behind. When your schedule loosens its grip and the horizon opens up again. When the possibilities of the next few days are still completely unknown.
People who have the wander gene understand this feeling well.Travel isn’t just about vacations or bucket lists.
It’s a form of oxygen.
It resets your perspective. It reminds you how vast and beautiful the world actually is. It breaks you out of routines that quietly shrink your sense of possibility.
Sometimes it’s the dramatic landscapes that do it—the desert sky in Arizona, the immensity of the Grand Canyon, the way mountains make you feel both tiny and alive at the same time.
Other times it’s something much simpler.
A long drive through a place you’ve never seen before.
A new coffee shop in a small town.
A conversation with someone whose life looks nothing like yours.
Travel has a way of stretching the mind. It gently pulls you out of the patterns you didn’t even realize you were stuck in.
And for people with the wander gene, that stretch is addictive.
Not in a reckless way. Not in a way that makes us unhappy with where we are.
But in a way that reminds us we’re meant to experience more than one version of life.
More than one landscape.
More than one story.
The interesting thing about people who love to travel is that they often carry a deep appreciation for home too. Because every trip away eventually leads you back somewhere familiar.
And when you return, you’re a slightly different person than when you left.
You notice things you didn’t see before.
You carry pieces of other places with you.
You gain a renewed gratitude for the life waiting back home.
That’s the gift of wandering.
It doesn’t just show you the world.
It expands you. So if you’ve ever felt that restless pull… that voice telling you to book the ticket, take the road trip, explore the trail, or say yes to the adventure—you might have the wander gene too.
And if you do, you’re in good company.
Because the world was never meant to be experienced from just one place.
Photo Credits: Daisy Holiday