BOOKS
Published
Read Time
8 min read
Reader ratingreader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
4.4
· 78 Amazon ratingsShare This Review
I Could Live Here by Ellen Barone Review: A Decade of Nomadic Midlife Reinvention
by Ellen Barone
Ellen Barone's debut memoir chronicles the decade-long nomadic journey she and her husband Hank embarked on after their rented house sold unexpectedly in 2011 — a planned one-year experiment through four countries that quietly expanded into a way of life spanning multiple continents. Published in 2023 by Abhuta, the memoir is a candid, open-hearted account of long-stay travel, shifting notions of home, and the personal transformation that comes from choosing impermanence over rootedness.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Midlife readers contemplating long-term travel abroad, expatriate life, or slow travel who want a memoir that interrogates what home and belonging genuinely mean — not just where to go next.
Worth it if
You're drawn to travel memoirs that move beyond itinerary into real philosophical inquiry about identity and place, and you want a decade-long longitudinal perspective rather than a short-trip snapshot.
Skip if
You're looking for a gritty, unvarnished account of financial hardship or logistical chaos on the road — the narrative arc here is reflective and inward rather than raw, and the premise assumes a degree of freedom (no fixed employment, no school-age children) that not all midlife readers will share.
What readers & critics say
Publisher and author framing at ellenbarone.com and icouldliveherebook.com describe the memoir as "intimate and revelatory" and "an open-hearted chronicle of change and adaptation." Reader voices on amazon.ca characterise it as going "beyond a travel memoir," praising its exploration of love, connection, and loss and calling it "an encouraging read" that motivated action.
Sources: ellenbarone.com, icouldliveherebook.com, amazon.ca4.4from 78 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
Ask LuvemBooks
Was this helpful?
I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging chronicles Ellen Barone and her husband Hank's decade-long nomadic life that began in 2011 when a sudden house sale pushed them toward a one-year experiment that grew into ten years across multiple continents. The memoir earns its distinction by moving well past postcard travel writing toward genuine philosophical inquiry into what home, belonging, and midlife reinvention really mean. It is best suited to readers contemplating long-term travel, expatriate life, or a renegotiation of place and identity — though those without the freedom to uproot may find the premise more aspirational than immediately practical.
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers drawn to the intersection of place, identity, and belonging, I Could Live Here offers something rare: a travel memoir grounded in a genuine decade of nomadic living rather than a snapshot journey, with the professional craft to match its ambitions. Barone's fifteen years of travel writing background means the prose is controlled and interior, not simply descriptive, and the central thesis about home being a feeling rather than a fixed address is genuinely tested rather than merely asserted. The key caveat is that the book's premise rests on a specific kind of midlife freedom — no fixed employment, no school-age children — that many readers won't share, which may limit practical relatability. As a debut from an independent press, it also lacks the wide critical reception that would help situate it firmly within the genre.
- Similar books
- Readers who connect with I Could Live Here will find kindred titles among the related books curated below. Ryan Benz's Wander: A Memoir of Letting Go shares the theme of releasing conventional anchors and embracing movement as a way of life. Glennon Doyle's Untamed likewise explores midlife reinvention and the courage to dismantle a settled life in favor of something more authentically chosen. For a lighter, place-rooted memoir with a similar sense of belonging found in unexpected circumstances, Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals traces a family's immersive life on Corfu with warmth and specificity. Melissa L. Cook's The Call of the Last Frontier offers another perspective on choosing an unconventional, place-defined life far from the mainstream.
- Who should read this?
- I Could Live Here is most squarely aimed at readers curious about long-term travel abroad, contemplating expatriate life or slow travel, or drawn to memoirs that treat midlife as genuine opportunity for reinvention rather than crisis. It speaks directly to anyone renegotiating what home means after a major life change — whether prompted by an empty nest, a career shift, retirement, or simple restlessness. Readers who appreciate travel writing that goes beyond destination highlights toward interior, philosophical territory will find Barone's voice rewarding. Those whose lives involve fixed employment, school-age children, or other immovable obligations may find the premise aspirational rather than immediately applicable.
- About Ellen Barone
- Shari Shattuck is an American actress and author.
- What are the main themes?
- The memoir's central themes are home and belonging — specifically, the argument that home is not a fixed place but "a feeling, a relationship, a way of being in the world." Woven through that are themes of midlife reinvention, the paradox of belonging without a fixed address, and the shifting bonds between two people when their shared life is deliberately unmoored. Barone also explores the quieter textures of long-stay travel: forming lasting friendships in temporary spaces, navigating new cultures and languages, and the personal transformation that accumulates over a decade rather than a single trip.
- Does it offer practical travel advice?
- I Could Live Here is not a practical guidebook — Barone's professional background in travel writing is put to use in service of emotional and philosophical depth rather than destination logistics or budgeting tips. The memoir documents the experience of long-stay travel across multiple continents, including settling into temporary homes and navigating different cultures, but readers seeking actionable how-to advice on slow travel or expatriate life will need to look elsewhere. The value here is in perspective and lived experience rather than practical instruction.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
About Ellen Barone
What are the main themes?
Does it offer practical travel advice?
Summarize this book
I Could Live Here begins when Ellen Barone and her husband Hank's rented home is sold unexpectedly in 2011, prompting what they planned as a one-year journey through four countries starting in Mexico — a journey that quietly expanded into a decade of long-stay travel across multiple continents. Barone, a professional travel writer since 1998 with fifteen years specializing in travel and tourism, brings an interior, reflective sensibility to the narrative, pushing past itinerary toward a genuine reckoning with what home actually means. The memoir's central argument — that "home isn't always a place — it's a feeling, a relationship, a way of being in the world" — is tested through sustained lived experience rather than theoretical musing. Published in 2023 by Abhuta, it is Barone's debut book and a thematically cohesive account of midlife transformation, shifting bonds to place, and the choice to embrace impermanence.
Follow up
How long does the journey in the book span?
How is the book structured?
What is the tone of the memoir?
Synthesized from verified book data & published reviews · How we review
Press Enter to ask. Answers come from our editorial Q&A — start typing to see related questions.
Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
Reading level
Adult
who it suits
Skip if you want raw, unvarnished accounts of financial hardship or logistical struggle in nomadic life — the memoir's arc is notably smooth and aspirational.
Our Review
A travel memoir of genuine scope and personal stakes, I Could Live Here earns its place on the shelf not through wanderlust fantasy but through the slower, harder work of asking what home actually means.
What the Book Is and What It Argues
I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging by Ellen Barone front cover
I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging begins with a practical disruption: the rented house Ellen Barone and her husband, Hank, share is sold, and rather than simply find another, they decide to spend a year traveling through four countries, beginning in Mexico. That one year becomes two, then five, then ten. Barone's memoir — her first book, published in 2023 by Abhuta — traces the arc of that expanding journey as the couple lives as long-term travelers, staying months at a time in temporary homes across new continents, cultures, and languages. The book's central argument is not a celebration of restlessness for its own sake but a genuine philosophical reckoning: as Barone writes, "home isn't always a place — it's a feeling, a relationship, a way of being in the world." That thesis, tested over a decade of real lived experience, gives the memoir its backbone.
The Premise and Its Personal Depth
What distinguishes this memoir from the broader genre of travel writing is its insistence on the ordinary alongside the adventurous. Barone documents not only the dramatic geography of living across continents but the quieter textures of settling into temporary spaces, forming lasting friendships, and navigating the paradoxes of belonging when you have no fixed address. The journey began in 2011 and reshaped, by Barone's own account, everything she and Hank thought they understood about connection and place. The book is framed as an open-hearted chronicle of midlife transformation — a term that carries weight here, since the decision to leave conventional domestic life behind was not made in youth but at a stage when most people are consolidating, not dismantling.
Barone's Voice and Background
Barone brings genuine professional credibility to the page. An independent creator since 1998, she spent fifteen years specializing in travel and tourism writing before living the nomadic life she now describes. That background shapes the memoir's sensibility: this is not a first-time traveler overwhelmed by novelty, but a writer who knows the genre well enough to push past postcard description toward something more interior. The book is described by the author and publisher alike as "intimate," and the structure — organized around the couple's shifting sense of home, sometimes tethered to place, sometimes to each other, sometimes simply to the freedom of reinvention — reflects that inward orientation. The prose, as the book's own framing signals, is designed to carry emotional texture, not just itinerary.
Genuine Limitations and Who May Find It Frustrating
The memoir's strengths are also, for some readers, its constraints. I Could Live Here is anchored in a specific kind of midlife freedom — two people without the tethers of school-age children, fixed employment, or immovable obligations — and readers whose lives do not permit that latitude may find the premise aspirational to the point of distance. The journey's origin story (a house sale prompting an international adventure) is structurally tidy in a way that real life rarely is, and readers seeking a rawer account of financial precarity or logistical failure may find the narrative arc smoother than their own questions demand. Additionally, as a debut memoir from an independent press, I Could Live Here has not yet accumulated the kind of wide critical reception that would allow confident attribution of its standing in the genre — readers accustomed to relying on major-outlet consensus may be navigating with less external guidance than usual.
Who This Book Is For
I Could Live Here is most squarely aimed at readers who are curious about long-term travel abroad, contemplating a life less anchored to a single place, or drawn to memoirs that treat midlife not as a crisis but as genuine opportunity for reinvention. It speaks to the growing community of people considering expatriate life, slow travel, or a renegotiation of what home means after a major life change. Barone's decade of experience — beginning in 2011, spanning multiple countries and continents — gives the memoir a longitudinal credibility that shorter travel narratives cannot claim. For readers drawn to the intersection of place, identity, and belonging, this is a memoir with a real argument to make and the lived experience to back it up.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
icouldliveherebook.com
- 2
- 3
ellenbarone.com
- Further reading
- 4
- 5
ellenbarone-new.squarespace.com
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
Books like I Could Live Here
Curated picks for readers who enjoyed I Could Live Here, with our reasoning for each match.
If you liked I Could Live Here
