Even the most nomadic, rootless, and travel-itchy can get burned out while traveling. The internet is a veritable graveyard of travelblogs whose authors traveled for a few years, learned and experienced what they wanted to, and then settled down or returned home. That’s fine…for cowards (kidding.)
Hard travel is, well, hard. Especially travel in which all of your possessions are on your back and returning “home” (if such a concept exists for you anymore), involves wading through a logistical shitstorm of trying to find shelter and employment with no first and last. One way to keep from getting travel burn (just made it up, you heard it here first) is having a home base you can return to every so often. This home base might be in your hometown, in your home country, or it might just be a home base on the continent you’re traveling through. But having some anchor point that you can return to and recharge the old batteries, as well as having a place to keep your stuff (even if, like us, you don’t have much of it) is a way to make sure that travel is not something that becomes a chore, or the only option. Because when travel becomes the only option, you become trapped in the same way you become trapped at a desk job (although with more comfortable clothes). And nobody wants that.
So get a place. Rent a room or an apartment somewhere you’re comfortable. This is your home base. YOUR home base. Your parents’ house is not a home base. Of course not everybody can afford to pay rent while covering the many expenses of travel. This is why you sublet. Not only do you maintain a home base while not paying for it, you can often turn a profit subletting, since people will pay more for short term rentals. This may be quasi-legal. Not really sure. You should probably look into this before doing it. Speaking of quasi-legal shadiness, craigslist is your best friend for this type of thing (in the U.S, anyway).
Then fill the place with stuff from your travels. Always being in someone else’s sphere is a great part of travel and it teaches you to be comfortable in lots of different circumstances. It expands your comfort zone, as they say. But you don’t have to be a masochist. It’s okay to have a place that you create, that is a true comfort zone. Make it comfortable. As someone who has traveled for several years, and shed nearly every physical position acquired along the way will tell you, eventually minimalism starts to suck. There are a few things that make a place really comfortable:
Pets and Plants.
Don’t get these, you’ll be gone, they’ll die. Find something better. The point is you should pick things that YOU like. And return to those things every once in a while, sit in a big comfy chair (okay a comfy chair really should be one of the things you get) look around your room and say “it’s good to be home.” Then plan your next trip.