I’m sitting in Borneo as I write this. Somewhere in the distance, orangutans are starting their day. In a few hours, I’ll guide a group through this ancient forest, help them witness something most people only see in documentaries. It’s the kind of moment that should feel like a privilege.

Instead, I’m thinking about home.

Jackson is a Boston Terrier with eyes like black buttons and a habit of sleeping pressed against my leg when I’m home. He follows me from room to room, a little heartbeat at my feet, always there. Except when I’m not. Which is most of the time now.

Jackson reminds me not just of home, but of the most important people in my life. He and Louis, a black pug who’s his constant companion, represent the life that exists when I’m not performing, not switched on, not being the person everyone else needs me to be. They’re the thread that connects me to what matters most – the people who truly knows me, not the guide version of me, not the professional mask I wear for the world, but the real me. The person who sees me fall apart after difficult trips, who knows my fears and doubts, who understands that sometimes the cost of living everyone else’s dream is forgetting what your own dreams look like.

Maybe you know this feeling too. Maybe you have your own Jackson, your own thread back to what’s real. A dog who stops waiting by the door. Someone who’s learned to celebrate birthdays alone. Kids who call someone else when they need help with homework.

Twenty-something years. That’s how long I’ve been doing this. Years of living other people’s dream adventures while slowly forgetting what my own life feels like when nobody’s watching.

I have a friend with two boys, seven and eleven. Last month he missed his youngest’s first goal in a real match because he was guiding in Botswana. His wife sent a video – shaky footage of a small boy in an oversized jersey, arms raised in triumph, looking around for his dad in the crowd. He watched it on his phone in a camp in the Okavango, surrounded by the kind of silence that only comes when you’re truly alone with the weight of what you’re not part of.

The hardest part, he told me later, isn’t missing the big moments. It’s missing the development. I come home and they’re different kids. Taller. More coordinated. Speaking differently. I’m watching them grow up in time-lapse.

The gratitude is real. Sitting with mountain gorillas in Uganda, watching polar bears hunt in Svalbard, sharing moments with guests that will define their lives forever – there’s a weight to that privilege that I don’t take lightly. But there’s another weight too. The weight of constantly being outside your own life, looking in through video calls and text messages, always a beat behind the rhythm of home.

The mathematics of absence are brutal. Seven and a half weeks was my longest stretch away. This was 7 years ago, before Jackson, before I understood what I was really losing. By the time I got home, it felt like living in someone else’s house – even though it was mine, ours. I was a stranger in my own space, unsure of the new rhythms, the way things had been rearranged, the life that had continued without me. That broke something in me I didn’t know could be broken.

Maybe you’ve felt this too. Coming home after your 6 week cycle and feeling like a visitor in your own life. When most people go on holiday, you go back to your life for a holiday. But two weeks isn’t enough time to rebuild what six weeks of absence has slowly worn away.

Time zones become emotional torture devices. There are stretches of the day when everyone you care about is asleep, and you’re completely isolated from the people who know your real name, not your guide name. You’re surrounded by the most beautiful places on earth, but you can’t share them with anyone who matters. You take photos that no one back home will truly understand, collect experiences that become increasingly hollow when there’s no one to process them with who knows the real you.

Video calls help, but they also hurt. You’re looking through a window into a life that’s learned to function without you. She’s having dinner, watching movies, dealing with problems, celebrating small victories – and you’re watching it all happen from the outside, like a ghost haunting your own existence. The person who knows you best, who sees through every professional facade, who’s been carrying the weight of your absence every day, managing a life that should include you but can’t. She’s the only one who truly understands what this costs, because she’s paying the price too.

Your partner doesn’t ask if you can make dinner plans anymore. Your friends don’t suggest activities that require you to be there. They’ve learned to plan around your absence, to make memories without you. They’ve gotten good at living without you. And that’s both heartbreaking and necessary.

My father is going through something serious right now. Health issues that require the kind of presence I can’t give from a rainforest halfway around the world. He makes a point to message me updates. I make a point to ask the right questions. But this careful choreography of care feels like a burden – not because I don’t want to know, but because when you travel constantly, everyone else has to work harder to include you. She has to think about time zones, about whether I’m in a place with signal, about how much emotional weight she can put on someone who’s already carrying so much distance. She becomes the bridge between me and everyone else, translating my absence into presence, making excuses for why I can’t be there, holding space for me in a life I’m barely part of.

That consideration from their side becomes guilt on mine. They’re managing their lives around my absence, and that’s not fair to anyone.

The decision I’m making – to step back, to pull away from guiding after this year – might be one of the hardest I’ve ever faced. This job isn’t just what I do; it’s who I’ve been for over two decades. But I’ve reached the point where I can’t keep setting myself on fire to keep other people warm.

Three more scheduled trips this year. The Mara in Kenya, then up to Svalbard in the Arctic, and finally the Pantanal in Brazil. Next year, back to Svalbard and one final week in Kenya. That Kenya trip in 2026 will more than likely be my last scheduled departure. After that, no more scheduled calendar entries that own my life.

It doesn’t mean I’m walking away completely. There might be private trips – small groups, one-on-one trips with people who know me, who understand that what I’m really offering isn’t just wildlife viewing but something deeper. Experiences built on connection rather than just sightings. But those would be different. Those would be on my terms, with people who get that this isn’t just about ticking animals off a list or obsessing about hero shots out in the field. People willing to look further than the surface of things.

It’s quite terrifying. You don’t know what waits on the other side of a life you’ve never lived. But I know what waits on this side: more missed calls, more time-lapse relationships, more moments when Jackson stops looking for me at the door.

I had a guest once, a young Canadian guy who’d saved for years to afford a trip to see elephants in the wild. On one of our last mornings in the Masai Mara, we found a small family that walked right past our vehicle, and he just stood there crying. This is what life should be, he said. This is what matters.

I nodded and agreed because that’s what you do. But I was thinking about how he’d be home by Sunday, back to his regular life, back to his family. He’d have his moment of transcendence, then return to the people who love him. I’d have my moment of transcendence, then have another one, and another one, while my real life continued to happen without me.

When you learn how to track, you discover something important: you don’t just read what’s there, but what’s missing too. The spaces between the prints tell you as much as the prints themselves.

I’ve spent more than two decades following the spoor of other people’s adventures. Now I need to learn to read the geography of my own missing – all the spaces where I should have been but wasn’t, all the moments that happened without my footprints in them.

Maybe you’re reading this and recognizing yourself. Maybe you’ve felt like a stranger in your own home, missed more birthdays than you’ve attended, wondered whether the people you love will still be there when you’re ready to come home. Maybe you have your own version of Jackson, your own thread back to what’s real that gets thinner every time you leave.

These feelings are normal. The guilt of loving your job while resenting its costs. The fear that everyone at home is moving on without you. The exhaustion of being “on” for guests while your own relationships run on fumes. The strange loneliness of being surrounded by people but cut off from anyone who truly knows you.

If this feels real to you, if you see yourself in these words, maybe it’s time to make it real. Write it down. Send a message. Admit that the cost is getting heavy. Because the first step isn’t pretending everything is fine – it’s being honest about how much it hurts.

Jackson is getting older. So am I. So is she – the person who’s been holding down our life while I’ve been living other people’s adventures. The only person who truly knows the man behind the guide, who sees the exhaustion I hide from clients, who understands that sometimes coming home is harder than leaving because you have to remember how to be yourself again instead of being what everyone else needs you to be.

The forests will still be here when other guides bring other guests to witness their magic. The animals will continue their ancient routines with or without me interpreting them.

But there’s this stupid insecurity that creeps in – what if she stops waiting? I know it’s ridiculous. I know she’s not going anywhere. But when you spend most of your time away, doubt becomes a constant companion. She’s been living half a life while I’ve been living everyone else’s full experience, and some part of me wonders if that’s sustainable forever.

The question isn’t whether this life costs something. It does. The question is whether that cost is worth it, and only you can answer that.

Some guides find ways to make it work. They set boundaries. They choose rotations that allow for presence, not just paychecks. They have the hard conversations about what they’re willing to sacrifice and for how long. They write down their dreams – not just their career goals, but their life goals – and they’re honest about whether their current path leads there.

Others decide the cost is too high. They step back, scale down, find ways to stay connected to the wild without losing connection to the people who matter. There’s no shame in either choice, but there is shame in refusing to make a choice at all.

Sometimes the bravest thing isn’t tracking a charging elephant or navigating a dangerous river crossing. Sometimes it’s admitting that you’ve been living someone else’s definition of an extraordinary life while your own ordinary, beautiful life has been learning to exist without you.

After the Pantanal, after Svalbard and that final week in Kenya next year, I stop being a visitor to my own existence.

Then I go home to Jackson and Louis, to the person who understands the weight of this decision because she’s carried it with me all these years. Home to the only person who truly knows me – not the professional version, not the guide who has all the answers, but the man who sometimes doesn’t know how to be in his own skin when he’s not performing for others. Home to a life where love doesn’t have to cross time zones to reach me, where the most important conversations don’t happen through a screen, where I can finally stop being what everyone else needs and just be who I am.

Your life is waiting for you to come home to it. The question is: are you ready to stop being a visitor to your own existence?

When I finally get to that point – when I can be home with my person, with Jackson and Louis, when I can finally exhale knowing I’m truly home – I think I’ll understand what that young Canadian guest in the Mara was crying about. This is what life should be. This is what matters.

Not the moments we collect for other people. But the moments we live for ourselves.

Stay safe out there.
And don’t forget to come home.