Fernweh. I remember first hearing that word in college in Pittsburgh, sitting next to a teammate of mine who had just about as much of the travel bug as I did back then. We were no more than nineteen or twenty, sitting and staring at maps, language books, and googling flight prices. The literal meaning of the word is something I have experienced many times in my life: far-sickness.
It’s the feeling of longing to be somewhere that you’re not. Itching for the chance to explore new worlds, make new friends, and start over. It’s not even about running away, but about chasing where your soul is calling you to go. For many years, my feelings of wanderlust and fernweh stemmed from international travel. I wanted to be the girl who walked the streets of London, sipped coffee blocks from the Eiffel Tower, and hiked mounds of lava rock in Italy below the base of Mount Etna. I got many of those experiences, but I had no idea my fernweh would extend to domestic pursuits until now.
After a turbulent 2020 and many, many, many, changes, I was itching to see anything but a palm tree. Or a beach, especially in the dead of Florida winter. We aren’t trapped by anything (especially here in Florida because we never really ever shut down), but the idea of the pandemic had been holding us back from seeing certain places and traveling. Heck, much of the world was at a standstill! When we got the opportunity to go West for a bit, we took it, even under the circumstances presented to us.
It is pretty amazing how perspective changes when the scenery changes. As we left behind the palms and beaches, we entered rain in the South, and then snow in the Midwest, and as we entered Kansas, I now call the perpetual state of fields and hills. Then, nearly 26 hours later, we crested over the last hill, and there they were.
The Rocky Mountains were in the distance, just barely visible, but enough for my too sleep-deprived self to start tearing up. There was this wave of peace that washed over me. I lived near mountains in Taiwan; I hiked some of the smaller ones and even woke up at four in the morning to see the sunrise on some of the island’s most famous peaks. But I had never lived near the mountains in America. Yet, on that cold day in January, I felt my first intense bout of fernweh on home soil. It hasn’t exactly gone away.
Florida has been a dream and a half. It was my first landing base after spending years abroad, and it is somewhere I wanted to live because of being born here and not having many memories here. Yet, part of me always knew that someday, I’d make it out West. As a kid, trips to Lake Tahoe were among my favorite, and I enjoyed seeing the Rockies as I flew over them to make it to Vancouver and then back to Taiwan once more. There is something so magical about the West and what it means to be an American. After all, manifest destiny and the American dream all have roots relating to the Gold Rush, which has always been intriguing to me.
I can’t lie: when we made it beyond the last great hill somewhere along the Kansas and Colorado border, I could feel the mountains calling. A feeling of fernweh has infected me, and unlike other times in my life, we’re going to answer the call. So, Colorado, we’re coming. And we cannot wait for all that awaits us: every hike, adventure, all four seasons, new restaurants, new friends, a new city, family memories to be made, and new beginnings. It’s time for a new chapter, at last.
