I guess most people refer to visiting their closest family or the place where they grew up as children when saying that they are going home for the holidays. Personally, I, too consider my current house my “home” so to speak, because this is where I reside with my family. However, I also do not truly call any other place home, since I have no other family in the area, nor do I have a fully intact family to visit in the place where I grew up. As a child I lived in Germany, and yes, we did visit relatives, mostly my grandparents on the holidays. Seldom did any relatives ever come to our home. Now this is no longer possible. First, my grandparents are no longer alive, my mother and father are separated and live on opposing coasts in the US, and I am several hours away from any of them. While my husband was in the military, we were typically too far away from either his or my family and so we typically made up our own circle of “family”, so to speak. That helped us bridge the time spent away from actual family members and allowed us to deepen the bonds with some of our closest friends.

I'm not sure if this is quite what you mean Cherise, but when we lived in England and life was a lot easier, we had a house near the Devon/Cornwall border and we took up caravanning.

The first caravan that we bought, was a small two berth touring van, it had everything in it toilet, shower, handbasin, cooker and after a spruce up was good to go. We were able to tour Cornwall with that little caravan and we had such a great time, we traded it in for a more spacious one.

By this time we were getting pretty good at caravan holidays, we had everything on board that you could need, down to sellotape, sewing kit and tool kit. We used to take our cats with us, as well as the dogs, we never used to let the cats out of course.

Sometimes we would cook meals in the caravan, sometimes we would eat out. I would never even consider a tent holiday, but this was warm, dry and comfortable, it really was home from home. Those holidays were the best of times.

Ahh, those halcyon days....................

They say "Home is where you hang your hat" or in today's world it's more like "Home is where you plug in your computer, cell, etc." People have often asked me where home is because we have moved around so often. My husband spent 20 years in the military and moving was a frequentl occurence. Home was always wherever we lived.

Our "home of origin" refers to where we were born and where we grew up. Coming from a large family, I still return to the "home of my childhood" to visit. It's wonderful to return to and visit family that still lives there. However, in reality it's no longer home. It's now a special room in my memory of loved ones and happy times.

Maybe we were meant to be roamers. We own a "home" in one state but are traveling to experience the beauty of other states. It's a beautiful world - one we can totally call "home"!

When I read the first part of your question, I thought you were asking if people had second homes in addition to their primary residence. I definitely get what you mean though. Personally, I do not have a "home" city apart from where I live, and it's a phrase I think I'm always going to try and avoid. I do have a town where I grew up (and I didn't move around much as a child), but I'm not sure that characterizing it as "home" is really the right way to go about it.

I appreciate going back to where I used to live for brief periods of time as much as anybody, but I prefer to think of home as wherever I currently live. I guess everyone misses their past to a certain degree, but I'm also very happy where I am.

Home is where I hang my hat. No matter where that is. I always go back to Brooklyn but for now the Poconos is where I call home. But you just can't get riceballs and lard bread here.

My father is 60 years old and has lived in the same house for the past 30 years. He lives about 10 miles from where he was raised. When he says he is going to "the house" he is going to the place he lives. When he says he is going to "over home", he is talking about the place he was raised. I always thought that was so odd and confusing, especially when I was a child.

I really can't answer this question that well for myself. I live across the road from my parents, and have never lived over 1/2 a mile away. So, home has always been where I live either way. Being 34 years old now, if I ever did live away, I am sure I'd have to say "home" when I referred to both places. If I am at work and going home, I'd be going to where I was currently living. If I said "I'm going home for the holidays", that would mean I was going to my parents. Can't I have both?

Being military, home really is where you hang your hat, or another way of saying it for us is “home is where the Air Force sends us”. But I do understand the “going home” phrase. People in the military do often say they are going home when they take leave and go back to visit family. This typically comes from people whose family are all in one place. It was like that for me when I first joined. I would go home (where I grew up) and visit everyone. Now that I am older, going “home” is what my kids used to say when they came to visit me…only now I live overseas so that “home” is not a possibility for them and they say “going to see mom”. Since my husband has a different hometown, when we travel now it is “going to Grandma J’s” or “going to Grandma P’s” or “going to college town (where the older kids are)”. All in all, home really is where you are because it isn’t the town or the house that makes it what it is.

I consider the city I live in right now my “home”. I grew up in this city in Illinois, went to school here, moved out of my parent’s home in this city and never really left. I was born in Tampa, Florida and my parents moved back to their “home” in Illinois when I was six months old and we’ve been here ever since.

I’ve always thought that I wished my parents had never left Florida because I’d really have liked to have made Florida my “home.” My grandparents had lived in Florida and my parents were there visiting and I really wasn’t supposed to be born down there. However, I had my way and was born in Florida. We sent back down there to visit every year until they passed and I really liked Florida. :-)

I can say yes. I have a home at Florida where in my job is also located. However, when I got older, I decided to live in Belize because I fell in love with the place when I went there for a vacation. The moment I arrived in Belize, I told myself that I will make this place my second home. And I did... I've got a property at http://sanctuarybelize.com