My Core Travel Life: From Runaways to Roots in Search of Independence

By Claudia Caffo 

Not everyone grows up with roots. Some of us grow up with runways.

I grew up in a family where flights were just part of life—flying for work, for study, for making things happen—and where I often felt the need to escape in search of peace and independence.

It was perhaps inevitable that I’d learn about airports and flights early. My dad traveled every week when I was a child. I was his daughter, the child of a man bound to leave the island, carrying the weight of hard-earned experience. Like many Sicilians, he was one of the bright minds caught between his roots—with the love for my mum—and the necessity of a job that would reward his intelligence, something our beautiful island could not provide.

My mum, also, grew up shaped by strong roots and runways, in a different way, from a place she could never call home. She lost her mother—an airplane pilot, painter, and pianist—at the age of eight. When her father forced her to start working at eighteen, closing the door on university, she didn’t stop. She built her own home, between a SUV race and an intense week at work—proving every day that independence could be her own.

My First Flight into My Dad’s World

I still remember my first trip, though the details are starting to get fuzzy.

I was six. My dad took my sister and me to Milan for a work trip. It was the first time I got a real sense of his world. We rented a grey Punto to get to the hotel, where my dad taught me how to “burn food.” I still remember his face when the alarm went off: he threw on his trousers and ran downstairs to deactivate it before getting wet—hahaha.

I finally saw the Duomo, swarming with pigeons, and we wrapped up the trip with a stop at Gardaland, where bubble shows, Prezzemolo, and glitter tattoos at the hotel claimed a special place in my memory. It felt exciting, and I think that’s when I started imagining myself traveling too—sometimes for work, sometimes for fun, or maybe a blend of both.

I remember sitting in the airport lounge, reading Geronimo Stilton, feeling all grown-up with my dad’s grey Nokia in hand, thinking I wanted to grow up like that—balancing a phone call, a book, and a flight to catch.

Scout: Belonging and Independence

At fifteen, I took my first flight alone—well, with my twin sister, but we’ve done almost everything together, so I find it hard to talk about my childhood in the first person. My sister and I flew to Abruzzo for an Explo scout camp.

One year later, I joined a Sherpa adventure in Colico, up in the mountains of Lombardy, with my best friend and scouts from all over Italy. I still remember the canoes, the stars above our heads, the 4 a.m. start to hike 32 kilometres, and the endless rain. We camped by rivers, made bonfires in the mornings to dry our wet clothes, and jumped off huge white rocks into the water when the sun finally peeked out.

I joined scouting at fourteen. At first, I saw it as a way to escape traditional catechism classes, which I was obliged to attend. That year, there was no space for me to join, so I endured the church’s boring weekends instead. But the following year, a spot opened up, and scouting became my happy place—far away from middle school and its terrible adolescents. What started as a way to get some space from school ended up becoming my second family.

I learned to build shelters out of wood and rope, light fires with twigs, and cook on makeshift stoves. The whole experience was indescribable. We went days without a proper shower, but honestly, it didn’t matter. We just became one with the earth, cozying up in our sleeping bags under the stars. And the best part? No phones—just nature, friends, and your bosses.

First Job in London & My Discovery of Diversity

At seventeen, I flew to London for a summer job. London, the city I’d only seen in Harry Potter movies, suddenly became real. And thanks to a ridiculous rule my parents had set back when having a phone with internet wasn’t the norm yet, I had no mobile data. I became a pro at navigating the city by downloading maps at home on Wi-Fi and hunting down free hotspots.

I also got my first piercing (much to my mum’s dismay), my first real taste of functioning public transport, and my first real taste of freedom. I remember seeing tattoos and pink hair at work, Black women as bus drivers, LGBTQ+ couples holding hands in the street, and the massive Pride parade in Trafalgar Square.

I also got a crash course in how difficult it is to find good Italian food abroad. I searched Tesco for decent and cheap olive oil (didn’t find it), but at least I impressed my roommates with my attempts at pesto, carbonara, and pasta alla Norma, forming the tricolor Italian flag.

Everything changed when I got back. My family moved from the South of Italy to the North, which felt like a seismic shift. I made a few new friends, but I also felt like I was losing the safe spaces I had, kind of like Riley in Inside Out. That was just the beginning of our rollercoaster.

DiscoverEU: An Unexpected Interrail

Suddenly, an unexpected adventure came my way. I was looking into bonuses for 18-year-olds when I found out about DiscoverEU, a competition for a free Interrail pass, with flights included in special situations like mine. I posted an Instagram story asking who wanted to join me. Three scouts signed up.

When we were selected, I started planning our fifteen days across Europe, staying in cheap hostels and eating supermarket meals.

My dad, a former Interrail traveler, encouraged me. My mum was a tougher sell, but eventually, she gave in. We landed in Copenhagen, then Berlin, Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, Haarlem, and finally cycled into Amsterdam along futuristic bike paths. When our return flight was cancelled, we got upgraded from hostels to a luxury hotel. I think we ate like we hadn’t seen real food in days.

That trip taught me something important: travel reveals who people really are when the days get long, and their masks start to slip. It also showed me Europe and how great it is, opening new doors in my mind.

A Risky but Worthy Escape to Ibiza

In my twenties, after a road trip around Sicily with a high school friend, I started college in Milan. It was meant to be a fresh start, and honestly, it was. Bocconi was amazing! But commuting made everything feel like a hassle. Then COVID hit. I ended up stuck in my small town, feeling disconnected from the campus crowd. I knew I had to get out.

In the summer of 2021, I spontaneously accepted a last-minute proposal to go to Ibiza with a €100 round-trip ticket, covering the rest of the expenses with a survival job at a poke bar.

Ibiza wasn’t just a party island with wild nights (because of COVID, every club was closed except Cova Santa, where the entrance fee was almost as much as my flight ticket). It was also home to quiet beaches, pine forests, and turquoise waters. I rented a scooter, cruised along the southern coast, and for the first time, I felt like I could just exist—without anyone else’s expectations.

When I came back, my dad kicked me out of the house because, for the first time, I wasn’t meeting his expectations. I had to face the consequences of my choice. I wasn’t sorry—just in survival mode for a while. However, it felt like the right kind of freedom, the kind you dream about while watching White Lines on Netflix.

22 and Time for Erasmus in Amsterdam

The next year, Erasmus arrived. I decided to go to Amsterdam, partly because I’d fallen in love with the city during my Interrail trip, and I could apply for a scholarship.

I ended up in a student dorm right next to the Anne Frank Museum, in Prinsengracht. My Danish roommate and I shared a room, divided by a wardrobe. I’d often sit by the window, watching a white swan glide by in the morning, or we’d sit on our black boat at night, losing track of time by the canal before heading to bed. I even got my first tattoo. I learned to juggle it all: studying, clubbing, cooking, and always biking on my rented bike for 18 euros a month.

The university felt like a second home. There were bike parks with free bananas and energy bars in the morning before class, game spaces, comfy study rooms, and a real sense of connection with our tutors.

Despite the endless rain, I was never sad. I realized it wasn’t the weather that had been making me feel off; it was the overall environment. Living close to everything I needed, with freedom and independence, made all the difference.

Beyond Schengen: The American Dream

In 2023, I started my master’s degree. It was everything I expected—until the same material from my bachelor’s felt like déjà vu. Commuting every day started draining me. So, I applied for another exchange, this time in New York State, two hours away from the Big Apple.

Everyone warned me, “Albany’s dead. It’s freezing there. It’s like the Wild West!” But I decided to go anyway. I mean, it’s New York! How bad could it be? I’m just another Southern Italian heading to America to find my fortune!

I worked at a pub to save up for the trip (with super-cheap flight tickets on SAS Youth) and even made an Excel spreadsheet to convince my parents. My quiet little plan—taking the IELTS, getting my passport, and saving up without telling anyone—was finally coming together.

Milan to Newark, with a layover in Copenhagen, became reality in January 2025.

The flight was smooth, and I watched Black Swan on the screen, the hum of the airplane blending with the flickering images. Wrapped in a warm blue blanket, with two empty seats next to me, I felt like I could sink into the moment, though it wasn’t exactly solitude—not with other passengers traveling just like me, all bound for somewhere else.

When I arrived at Penn Station, I met Molly, a Canadian stranger who helped me in the middle of a cold night, wrapped up in my snow jacket. With her support—my Flixbus never arrived—I finally made it to Albany. I crashed at my friends' places for a week before settling into my college dorm next to the campus center, where the spacious gym quickly became my routine escape. Two girls, one from Massachusetts and the other from Buffalo, welcomed me with open arms, kitchen utensils, colors, movies, vodka shots, and vapes. They felt like the home I had always wanted to find after an intense day of classes.

My Exchange Life Nostalgia

Albany was quiet at first, but soon enough, I fell into the rhythm: campus buses, underground tunnels, classic American college vibes with wild cafeterias, a maze of restaurants, free counseling, tons of events, free food, and massive libraries packed with new computers and printers. My classes felt like a game where professors knew my name, and quizzes made everything stick. Walmart became a safe option for cheap supplies, surviving on an average receipt of $30, which was even cheaper in euros.

Weekends became the highlight: basketball games with cheerleaders, homemade pizza nights, crashing frat parties, or hunting down pubs. The snow, which everyone had warned me about, turned out to be magical. By March, as it started to thaw, I realized Albany wasn’t so bad after all, and they loved Southern Italians!

I was living life—at the movies, roller rinks, on motorbike trips around Schenectady, and biking through the green streets of Niskayuna with its charming colonial houses and romantic gardens. I began to appreciate simple things like eggs in the morning and long coffees at Starbucks or Stewart's. I ventured beyond the Capital City, seeing New York City’s skyscrapers, feeling the thunder of Niagara Falls, and experiencing American politics firsthand in Washington, D.C.—feeling like I was in an episode of House of Cards.

Back to Europe: A Promising Internship Offer and a Sudden Realization

Of course, all good things come to an end. As my visa expiration date loomed, I got an offer for an internship at the European Commission—the dream job I’d been chasing since I was eighteen. I was torn. I wanted to stay in the U.S., but visa issues made it complicated. In the end, I had to follow the path that made the most sense. I accepted the offer in Brussels. It felt like completing a circle my dad had started years before—he had done an internship in Brussels and an Erasmus in the Netherlands, and almost moved to the U.S., but never did. Somehow, my journey felt like a continuation of his unfinished path.

On May 18, I left Albany. By May 20, I was in Brussels, ready to start my new chapter.

But the reality was, I’d only just started to enjoy a life that made me feel like everything was possible, and now here I was, starting over once more. Leaving Albany left me numb to the idea of meeting new people, except for those in my work team. Finding myself in yet another city, with new roommates and unpredictable weather, pushed me to the edge of saturation. I hadn’t even had time to clean my clothes, still living out of my suitcase. I just packed a small trolley and landed—again.

The fear of missing out on opportunities and the constant discomfort in my home environment brought me there. I was caught between two worlds: the dream of endless travel, always chasing the next adventure and the perfect job, and the pull to settle, to find roots and a place to call home.

A push and pull between runaways and roots, and it started to feel like I was always running—not just toward something, but away from my parents growing older, my brothers getting taller, and my friends starting new routines. Away from the loved ones I met while traveling, away from anything long-lasting.

Not everyone grows up with roots—some of us are shaped by the pull of flight, moving through the world before we’ve learned to stay. I have grown used to it, even turned it into a life of travel, letting the horizon become my companion. And yet, deep within, I carry the quiet hope of roots that linger—connections with those I love, tender and steady, so that even when I wander, I am never truly without home.