I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging
For anyone who’s ever wondered what it means to start over somewhere new—this is the story of what happens after the leap: a decade-long journey of reinvention and discovery.
I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging
For anyone who’s ever wondered what it means to start over somewhere new—this is the story of what happens after the leap: a decade-long journey of reinvention and discovery.
I Could Live Here By Ellen Barone
When our rented house unexpectedly sold, my husband, Hank, and I set out on a year-long journey through four countries, starting in Mexico. But one year became two, then five, then ten.
Over the next decade, we lived as long-term travelers, staying months at a time, attuning to new surroundings, cultures, languages, and ways of seeing the world.
I never expected to find connection and belonging in impermanence. But our temporary lifestyle opened the door to a deeper truth: home isn’t always a place—it’s a feeling, a relationship, a way of being in the world.
I Could Live Here is an intimate and open-hearted memoir of midlife change, unexpected adventure, and a redefined sense of what it means to belong.
My Story
Freedom. Creativity. Curiosity. Mine is the story of a woman discovering herself in the world and finding the language to articulate and share the experience.
My Story
Freedom. Creativity. Curiosity. Mine is the story of a woman discovering herself in the world and finding the language to articulate and share the experience.
ROOTED IN HOME. SHAPED BY TRAVEL.
Ellen Barone | Laura A Tiliman Photography
In 1998, inspired by a life-changing Fulbright teaching exchange seven years earlier, I left a secure academic career to become a travel photographer and writer—guided only by curiosity and a storyteller’s instinct.
That leap of faith launched hundreds of journeys across six continents and a career devoted to transforming wanderlust into words. For fifteen years, I created travel and tourism stories and visuals that inspired others to explore the world. In 2015, I turned that experience toward helping brands share their own narratives through marketing communications and content strategy.
In 2011, my husband Hank and I took our biggest adventure yet—what began as a one-year travel experiment became a decade-long nomadic life that reshaped everything we thought we knew about what home means and how we find connection. That journey became my 2023 memoir, I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging.
Today, I continue exploring how place, story, and connection intertwine. I’m writing a novel set along Portugal’s Atlantic coast and co-publish YourLifeIsATrip.com, a collaborative travel blog. I call New Mexico home—but curiosity keeps me lingering in places, traveling slow and staying long.
When I’m not writing or wandering, you’ll find me lost in a good book, seeking out local artisans and their stories, or plotting about the next adventure.
I welcome collaborations, speaking invitations, and conversations about travel, storytelling, and the evolving idea of home—feel free to get in touch .
JOIN Me on Instagram
After a long pause, I’m enjoying a slow return to social media on Instagram @ellenbarone. Want to join me? I’d love to meet you there.
JOIN Me on Instagram
After a long pause, I’m enjoying a slow return to social media on Instagram @ellenbarone. Want to join me? I’d love to meet you there.
