What Travel Teaches Us About Home

There's something that happens when you step away from your own space and into someone else's world. During my trip to New York City, I found myself standing in the Ralph Lauren flagship on Madison Avenue, surrounded by the kind of timeless elegance that makes your heart skip a beat. Brass fixtures gleaming against rich wood paneling, clean lines meeting heritage details, that unmistakable English cottage warmth translated into sophisticated luxury. And I realized, this is what travel does.

It doesn't just show us beautiful spaces. It transforms how we see our own. My team and I spent the day moving through the city's most inspiring design destinations. The Architectural and Design Building, where every showroom tells a different story about how people choose to live. The New York Public Library, with its breathtaking architecture that most definitely inspired elements of my Liberty Estate project. When you stand in a space designed to last centuries, I believe you begin to understand what timeless truly means.

Then there was the Plain English showroom (my team had to pull me out of there I was so captivated!). If you know me, you know my heart belongs to brass fixtures, clean finishes, and that English cottage aesthetic that feels both elevated and utterly livable. Walking through their space felt like coming home to a place I'd never been.

After every sourcing trip, every gallery visit, every moment spent in a beautifully considered space, I come home different. Suddenly, the way light filters through a window matters more. The story behind a single piece becomes more important than filling every surface. The intentionality of a well-curated space feels essential rather than optional for me.

Travel teaches us that home isn't just about aesthetics. It's about feeling. It's about creating spaces that hold our stories, our memories, our daily rituals with the same care that those beautiful places we visit hold theirs.

When we experience how others live, like the unhurried elegance of a Ralph Lauren interior, the functional beauty of English design, the grandeur of spaces built to inspire generations—we start to question our own choices. Do our homes reflect how we actually want to live? Or have we simply filled them with what we thought we should have?

This is why I'm so passionate about designing with intention. Every trip reinforces what I already know: good design evokes a feeling, and great design withstands trends and time.

Travel reminds us that our homes should tell our story—not someone else's. They should reflect the places that moved us, the moments that changed us, the life we're actually living.

So the next time you travel, pay attention. Notice what makes you feel at home in unfamiliar places. Notice the brass fixtures that catch the light just right. Notice how certain spaces make you want to linger, to breathe deeper, to slow down. Because those feelings? Those are the ones worth bringing home.