Thailand

Chiang Mai is home now, and the whole year has seasons you won't find in any travel guide. Songkran in April is a citywide water fight where grandmas ambush you with super soakers from behind bushes. Then comes smoky season, when the mountains vanish and the air purifier works overtime. Then the rain, which doesn't drizzle. It floods. I've watched the moat overflow from my 14th-floor balcony, seen the Iron Bridge underwater and found my scooter caked in mud in its parking spot.

And I still wouldn't live anywhere else. There's 50-baht mango sticky rice within walking distance, good coffee on every street in Nimman, temples where monks ride scooters to 7-Eleven, and Doi Suthep watching over the city. The street dogs have their territories worked out, and now there's a French bulldog in the mix too. Thailand pulled me in for one trip in 2017, and somehow it became home.