Where I Plan to Travel Next (and Why)

By Peter Kowalke on September 11, 2025

The whole world is my home, and I genuinely feel that in my bones. But just because the entire world is my home, that doesn’t mean every room in this home is known.

This is particularly true because while I travel a lot and live internationally, I’m not an experience collector; I don’t bounce around collecting passport stamps on a quest to see every country. That misses the point. Instead, I repeatedly visit the same places and stay for longer durations, expanding slowly and continuously. The goal is being home everywhere in the world. That requires depth, not just breadth.

The past few years, I’ve worked on making Africa home. The process isn’t complete yet, but now meeting a Nigerian in Bangkok makes me smile the same way as seeing an Indian in New York: I identify with them as family, and they remind me of home.

Where is the next part of the world that becomes home?

The process is organic, so we don’t really know. But there are hints in might be the Middle East, followed by Europe.

The Middle East has been on the horizon for awhile. One of my longstanding dreams is a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudia Arabia. I’ve also had a curious affinity for Islam since I was a teen, indirectly connecting me to the Middle East.

This door finally opens when I visit Qatar and Egypt later this year, and those visits likely signal the start of my Middle Eastern phase.

Europe also probably will happen soon. I almost expanded into Europe in 2020, but then the pandemic hit. Now I probably will wait until after WWIII happens (around 2033), or start moving in that direction with Czechia and Bulgaria after the Middle East. My lack of connection with Europe is an unexpected quirk that won’t last forever. Europe is coming.

Let’s see. But starting next week, I begin embracing Qatar.