10 Things Only Third Culture Kids Understand About Home

"Where are you from?" It's a simple question for most people. But for Third Culture Kids (TCKs), it can feel like solving a puzzle with missing pieces.

When you've grown up moving between countries, cultures, and communities, the idea of "home" becomes...complicated. It's not just one place or language or flag. It's a blend of people, memories, foods, airports, and sometimes -emotional limbo.

If you know, you know.

Here are 10 things only TCKs truly understand about the meaning of home:

1. Home Isn't Necessarily a Location - It's a Feeling

Home might be a friend's laugh, your family's mealtime ritual, or a familiar song. Home isn't always a physical place for TCKs - it's emotional. It's wherever you feel safe, known, and a little less in-between. "I define home as my husband - safe, comfortable, secure and a place to be myself," wrote a friend when I asked them to define home. Home for them was not about a place but how they feel with a specific person.

2. You Can Feel at Home in Multiple Countries (and Still Feel Like an Outsider in All of Them)

You may love the smell of spices in one country and the rainy streets of another, but you might not feel like you fully belong anywhere. Welcome to the paradox: belonging everywhere and nowhere all at once. In Niger, I felt right at home, but every time I walked down the street and was the only person that looked like me, I was acutely aware that I was an outsider in my own home.

3. Suitcases and Airports Feel Weirdly Comforting

For many, airports mean stress and chaos. For TCKs, they're almost nostalgic - places of change, hellos, goodbyes, and transitions. A suitcase might be more consistent than a house. I cannot tell you the number of times I have had friend/family reunions in a bustling airport. Often times, an airplane can bring anxiety for the new place awaiting me but also comfort in the familiar routine of travel.

4. Home Can Be Temporary - and That's Normal

You've learned to love fiercely, even when you know you may have to leave. You've adapted to making temporary places feel like home without needing permanence to make it meaningful. When my family came back to the US for a year my 5th grade and 10th grade year, I learned how to temporarily call a place home. I longed to be back in Africa, but was also content in this second home, all while knowing that in a year I would say goodbye to friends and family again.

5. Your Definition of Home is Different from Your Family's

Sometimes even within your family, each member has their own sense of "home." Your sibling might feel rooted in one country while you're still attached to another. And that's okay. Your home does not have to be or look the same as anyone else's. You have your own unique home and story and that's ok.

6. You Grieve People More Than Places

When you leave a country, it's the people you miss the most. The ones you made the everyday special. Places fade. Relationships stay in your heart. It is very normal to miss the place you hung out with your friends the most, your school or your favorite hiking spot. It is important to grieve the relationships you are also leaving behind, knowing that those relationships may forever look different.

7. You Associate "Home" with Smells, Sounds, and Flavors

The scent of jasmine, the call to prayer, the crunch of street food - you connect deeply with sensory experiences that tie you to moments and places that once felt like home.

8. You Have to Re-Learn How to Answer "Where's Home?"

It's not a one-word answer. Sometimes you give a short version. Sometimes a whole story. And sometimes...you smile and say, "It's complicated."

9. You've Built a Mental Map of Belonging

Your idea of home might be pieced together through people and places scattered across the globe. A best friend in one city, your childhood house in another, and your heart split between three time zones. Part of belonging in my own journey, is loving the idea that just about anywhere I travel I have a friend or family member that I can stay with and be reminded of home and where I belong.

10. You Know That Home Can Be Found in People

At the end of the day, what grounds many TCKs isn't geography - it's relationships. Your truest sense of home often shows up in people who "get" you, even if they live thousands of miles away. I am reminded of home and the beauty of my story when I meet another TCK, regardless of whether they also grew up in Africa or if they lived in Asia or Europe.

Being a Third Culture Kid means carrying many versions of "home" in your heart. And while that can feel disorienting at times, it also gives you a unique ability to connect, adapt, and create home wherever you go.

What does "home" mean to you as a TCK?

Share your thoughts in the comments or on Instagram using the hashtag #GlobalFootprintHome - I'd love to hear your story.