Bills, chores, maintenance, lugging groceries from the car into the house, floors that don’t rock up and down with our dancing; after living in a camper for a year, it somehow all feels foreign. Privacy, showers, cupboard space, plugging in appliances without checking the remaining battery charge; it’s not all bad, it just takes some getting used to.

In case you, dear reader, have no idea what I’m on about, we bought a house. With the coronavirus pandemic still in full swing and no guarantees of it letting up any time soon, we decided that now is not the time to travel. We considered it, for sure. The EU is mostly open again, and many countries are welcoming tourists in a bid to save the industry, but the risks are simply higher than we’re willing to accept. A house, then, was the only logical solution.

We’re in Sweden, a little over an hour’s drive from the house where it all started, and the proud new owners of a 100-year-old red cottage on the edge of a small wood. The house is only 54 m2 (we did our best to keep it modest), but after living in 8 m2 for a year, it feels huge. Our first weeks here have been filled with cleaning, painting and—much to our dismay—rebuying many of the things we got rid of with our last house. Life on the road has left us adaptable, and the transition to home living has been virtually seamless; we live here now, and that’s all there is to it—until today.

Since moving in, the camper has remained a storage unit for stuff we haven’t needed in the house yet—things like winter coats and inflatable kayaks. Today, I spent the morning moving everything into the house, and the empty cabinets finally drove home the point for me: we live here now. No more waking to new views every day, no more seemingly endless drives through breathtaking landscapes and distant locations with no concern for the return journey. Suddenly, cleaning out the camper feels very final; suddenly, I miss the road.

It isn’t the end, of course. We fully intend to travel again when we believe it is safe enough to do so responsibly, but in what form remains to be seen. For now, in any case, a new adventure has begun for us—one of falu red, meatballs and moose. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I need to mow the lawn.