SHORT

I Could Live Here is a story of life upended, new beginnings, and a redefined meaning of home. An intimate and revelatory traveler’s memoir for anyone grappling with an unconventional life. Perfect for the uncertain nature of our times.

MEDIUM

When an unexpected phone call and its startling consequences sent Ellen Barone and her husband, Hank, packing on a global nomadic adventure—first for a year, then another, until somehow a decade of itinerant rootlessness had come to feel like home—she never expected to find connection and belonging in impermanence. But their temporary circumstances provided a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery and a growing comfort with change, uncertainty, and vulnerability. I Could Live Here is a story of life upended, new beginnings, and a redefined meaning of home.

LONG

In February 2011, Ellen Barone and her husband, Hank, embarked on a nomadic adventure, searching for a life they couldn’t yet articulate. She was forty-seven. He was seventy-four. What followed was an uncertain journey to an unknown future and a life very different from the one they’d been living.

It started with a decision to wander—first for a year, then another, until somehow a decade of slow travel had come to feel like a fortunate life.

As they confronted the question of settling down, the thing that compelled them to stay and to leave, again and again— the paradox discovered at the heart of nomadic life— was a sense of deep connection.

After countless uncertainties and temporary homes across the Americas and Europe from Mexico and Nicaragua to Colombia, Peru, and Portugal, the Barones returned to the U.S. in December 2019 for what they assumed would be a short visit—full of new plans, new hopes, new places to go.

Then—screech—the coronavirus changed everything. Once again, they stepped out of one way of life and into another.

I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging by Ellen Barone is an open-hearted chronicle of change and adaptation and a compelling, tender, and honest exploration of what it means to be simultaneously at home in oneself and the world.

About the Author

Ellen Barone is an author and storyteller whose work explores the meaning of home, belonging, and how place shapes identity. In 1998, she left a secure teaching career to pursue a life of creativity and discovery—journeys that eventually led to her debut memoir, I Could Live Here (2023). Drawing on decades of global travel and a deep curiosity about connection, Ellen writes and speaks about transformation, creativity, and the courage to keep redefining what home means.

What if home wasn’t a place, but something you carried with you?

In February 2011, when their rented house suddenly sold and their comfortable routine crumbled, Ellen Barone and her husband, Hank, faced a choice: scramble to rebuild the same life, or leap into the unknown. They chose the leap, packing their lives into storage and setting out for what they thought would be a one-year adventure—three months each in four different countries, starting with Mexico.

But one year became two, then five, then a decade. What began as a planned experiment—perhaps even a search for a new home—became a journey of reinvention, a couple learning to live without the safety nets they'd spent decades building. They traded financial security for freedom, familiar communities for connections across language barriers, and comfortable routines for the constant work of adapting to new cultures.

As they moved from Mexico to South America to Europe, they discovered that what drew them to stay in each place—and what ultimately pushed them to leave—was often the same: a growing sense of connection, and a deepening awareness of what 'home' could mean when it's no longer tied to one place.

In December 2019, they returned to the U.S. for what they thought would be a brief visit. Then the pandemic hit, and the world, along with their carefully unstructured life, came to a sudden halt. But in 2022, as international travel resumed, so did their courage to choose uncertainty over security—this time beginning in Scotland and continuing with the same quiet determination to live differently.

I Could Live Here is a personal and quietly radical memoir about the risks and rewards of choosing uncertainty, the complexities of partnership when everything familiar falls away, and what it means to belong—in the world, and in your own skin.

With tenderness, insight, and disarming honesty, Ellen Barone explores what happens when you give up everything you're supposed to want—and discover what you actually need.

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Readers who will enjoy I Could Live Here include:

Wanderlust enthusiasts

Social and Cultural Explorers

Personal Development Seekers

Writing and Storytelling Enthusiasts

ICouldLiveHereBook.com is a free online resource for I Could Live Here book information.