I initially wanted to ask how does one be a traveller in your own country, but realised for many, it is possible to travel in one’s country due to sheer size of the country. But I come from Singapore, which is a small city state in South East Asia. So no such luck when it comes to having a real sense of travel here.

But I’d been wondering… since I enjoy travel so much, and I feel so bored when I get home, is there any way to experience the same sense of novelty and feeling of adventure in your own city/country, as if you are a traveller? Serious question.

It’s so easy to feel indifference in your home city because you acclimatize to things. Taking the same commute everyday. Eating from the usual places. Days defined by routine, saturated with sameness. Our human senses perceive novelty when things contrast and stand out from the norm, something non-routine. Moreover, my country is just a city which you can cover from tip to tip within 30min on highway. It’s seriously small. There seriously isn’t many new places left to discover. Even if I visit a part of the city that I had never been, the halo effect of feeling bored from your own hometown bleeds into that experience, making it a lot less exciting than it could be. I don’t really want to just write off my own home as boring, so I really want to give it a good try, to be a traveller in my own country. 

So how does one intentionally seek novelty in one’s own country? Is it even possible to be a tourist in your own city? What are some interesting hacks you do to cope with wanderlust?