I’m watching the sun rise slowly over the Andalusian hilltops, hues of orange, pink and purple spread across the pale blue dawn sky. It’s going to be another beautiful day; no weather forecast is required.
With my eyes, I trace the ridges and crests of the hills that surround us, noting the patchy dark-coloured scrub and lonely trees that dot them, the dry orange earth stretching in between them, trying to understand the landscape. It’s only when my husband hands me a coffee which smells as divinely alien as the view in front of me looks that I realise I’m not dreaming, we’re actually here, housesitting in a tiny town in Spain.
Our Journey from Conventional Life to Endless Adventure
Neither of us had ever gotten on with conventional life. We had been restless in our early twenties; travelling as far and wide as we could together. A two-year backpacking trip that took in 12 countries and 4 continents propelled us towards the inevitable realisation that we wanted to see as much of the world as possible.
Returning to our home town, we felt it was expected that we would “settle down”, and so we did. We both got jobs. Tom studied to become an accountant and I joined the police. We bought a house, got a cat and got married. We were happy, but something niggled at us.
That something grew and grew until we realised that where we were wasn’t where we wanted to be forever. Over a summer of lockdowns, isolation and solitude in the COVID-19 pandemic, we allowed our dreams to come to the surface and had many conversations about the countries we wanted to visit, animals we wanted to see in the wild and conservation efforts we’d like to help with.
It felt mischievous in a way, as though even in just dreaming of it we were rebelling against what society expected. We discussed how we wanted to travel more, possibly forever, and not to be tied to one location. We knew that when the world reopened, the time would come.
From Detective to Digital Nomad
The problem was that I couldn’t do my job remotely. Tom had been successful in finding a company where he could work fully online, but police work can’t be done remotely, especially investigating major crimes.
In the midst of the pandemic, I’d landed my dream job as a Major Crime Investigation Officer – the police staff equivalent of a detective, in the Major Crime Team. I was investigating the most serious offences there are; sudden death and murders, and I was really enjoying it. I know that sounds odd. And trust me, it’s nothing like what you see on TV. With a surname like Holmes, what can you expect?
I had a bit of an identity crisis whilst continuing my extraordinary work. I felt like Jekyll and Hyde, two different people, split right down the middle. Did I want to be a strong career woman or did I want to travel the world? Did I want to settle down or did I want to run free? Would I work long hours or would I see the sun rise over the Pyramids of Giza? Would I stay in my home town forever?
I felt so torn. But then I remembered that I wasn’t discarding the other in choosing one thing. I could always go back to policing, but one day, those Pyramids wouldn’t be there. I knew that deep down, I belonged on the road.