When you’re traveling for a long time, bouncing from hostel to hostel in different countries with different languages and norms, it becomes incredibly important to find hostels that feel a bit like home. Places where you can rest, and feel comfortable and surrounded by people who care about you.

In this life, such a simple, ordinary thing as making dinner becomes a sacred act. A reminder of normalcy in the constant, shifting chaos of life on the road.

I made chicken cacciatore at this kitchen, the way my mother makes it. Another traveler helped me cut the vegetables. We sat down together, and ate.