I Could Live Here

Fellow nomad memoir about releasing the fixed idea of home — ideal if Barone's decade of placelessness resonated and you want more raw, unresolved wandering.

If you finished I Could Live Here and immediately searched for more books like it, Wander: A Memoir of Letting Go belongs at the top of your list. Ryan Benz writes about trading a conventional life for open-ended travel with the same honest ambivalence that makes Barone's memoir stand out — neither a cheerful escape fantasy nor a cautionary tale. Both books ask what it actually costs to let go of a fixed address, and both refuse easy answers. Where Barone's journey is shaped by a partnership and a long arc of ten years, Benz's voice is more solitary and raw, making it a strong companion read for anyone drawn to the psychological interior of long-term nomadic life rather than the highlight-reel version.

A family uproots to a foreign island and discovers that 'home' is built from relationships and wonder, not walls — warm, witty, and philosophically generous.

Readers who loved the way I Could Live Here interrogates what makes a place feel like home will find a classic companion in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals. Set on the Greek island of Corfu, it follows the Durrell family's impulsive relocation with a tone that is funny, observational, and quietly profound — much like Barone's own blend of travelogue and personal reckoning. Both books share a core insight: home is less about geography than about curiosity and connection. Durrell's memoir also explores how an unconventional living experiment reshapes the people who try it, which makes it one of the most recommended books for readers asking 'what to read after I Could Live Here' who want warmth and wit alongside the big questions.

Midlife identity rebuilt from the ground up — shares Barone's fearless renegotiation of expectation, though anchored in self rather than place.

If the heart of I Could Live Here spoke to you — the part about dismantling a life that looks right on paper and rebuilding it around something truer — Glennon Doyle's Untamed will feel like a direct conversation. Where Barone finds reinvention through physical movement across continents, Doyle finds it through an internal reckoning with who she was trained to be versus who she actually is. Both books are powered by a frank, searching voice and a refusal to wrap hard truths in reassuring conclusions. Untamed is especially well suited to readers in midlife who picked up I Could Live Here because they are quietly questioning their own sense of belonging and want a memoir that validates the discomfort of that questioning without rushing toward a tidy resolution.

A long physical journey becomes a prolonged meditation on identity and what we carry versus what we shed — pairs well with Barone's decade-long road.

For readers who liked the way I Could Live Here uses sustained travel as a lens for self-examination, Hello My Name Is Sharkbait offers a different scale but a recognizable spirit. Michael Neiman's account of hiking 2,000 miles on the Appalachian Trail is less about scenery than about the slow, grinding process of stripping away the non-essential — a theme that runs through every chapter of Barone's memoir as well. Both writers discover that committing to an extended journey forces questions that a vacation never would. If you are searching for books like I Could Live Here that pair adventure with genuine introspection rather than bravado, Neiman's trail memoir is a grounded, accessible choice that rewards patient readers.

A woman trades familiar comfort for an extreme, unfamiliar landscape over twenty years — explores belonging and identity under even more elemental conditions than Barone's.

Melissa L. Cook's The Call of the Last Frontier chronicles two decades of choosing Alaska's wilderness over the predictable comforts of conventional life — a commitment to place-as-transformation that directly echoes the stakes of I Could Live Here. Barone and Cook both write about what happens when a single unconventional decision compacts into years, reshaping not just a lifestyle but a sense of self. Cook's setting is more extreme and her isolation more absolute, which gives her book a rawer, more elemental texture. Readers who found themselves drawn to Barone's question — can you truly belong somewhere that isn't where you started? — will find Cook wrestling with the same question across a very different terrain. A strong next read for anyone searching for 'if you liked I Could Live Here, try...' recommendations with a frontier edge.