Table of Contents
Introduction (2025)
In 2013, I spent six months living in Singapore as a study exchange student. During that time, I wrote a reflection on what “home” meant to me, and what it was like to be one of the international students in Singapore. However, I never published it. Looking back, I think it was simply because I didn’t yet have a platform to share it.
Now I do, I wanted to share it with you as part of my Student in Singapore series. Over the next few months or so, I will be sharing a few posts that capture the memories of the countries I visited around Southeast Asia while living in Singapore. A decade later, I know but I’m publishing what I wrote in 2013, exactly as I wrote it back then.
Reading these words now about my time living in Singapore makes me smile at my younger self because just like I am now. I understood so much about travel, courage, and creating new homes in unexpected places. Read what I wrote over a decade ago.
Related post – Student in Singapore: My Asia Reflection Series.
What “Home” Meant to Me in 2013
There’s truly no place like home…
There truly is no place like home …. Home is a place where you should feel safe, warm and most importantly, yourself. You can smile, laugh, cry, eat, sleep, argue, talk (you name it). It’s the place that you share with yourself, family and sometimes friends, possibly a pet. A place you can go back to and a place that can be deeply missed..
You can stay at a friend’s for a night and go home, or even make a quick trip with your friends or family, and know that home is close by when you want to return quickly.
No,w what if you know you’re going away from home and don’t know when you will return?
That’s when home becomes different every day.. It can be in England one day and be Singapore the next, or it can go downhill and be anything from a bus, train, to a hostel and if you’re lucky, a nice hotel (but don’t count on it.)
When Singapore Became My Home
In the last 6 months, my home became Singapore, a place so small, yet filled with everything at the same time. I loved it and hated it, but hey, that’s what home can be sometimes for anyone..
Living in Singapore was amazing in one word. I honestly can’t express the journey that I have just experienced until you live it. It’s when you can actually understand it, sharing and writing about it almost brings it back to life and hopefully will give you an ounce of what it was like.
Being back in the world of reality makes the whole experience feel like a dream a distant dream, almost like it never really happened. When I know that it did!
I have been back (the UK) for almost three weeks today, yet the memories of my travels and stay in Singapore are so distant that it becomes depressing thinking about it. Bringing it back to life makes me smile (I have a huge grin on my face now) with the use of words and pictures, I intend to as I believe it’s not an experience to ever easily let go or to be easily forgotten.
The Lesson I Took Away
Here I share the most best experiences I could ever imagine for myself, whilst also expressing my views of every country I landed in (and believe me, there are some strong views.)
One thing I took away, and so should you, from reading and interacting with me, would be don’t never let opportunities slip. Can you imagine what I wouldn’t have seen if i didn’t go? So many people make excuses for not taking opportunities, and it angers me as the excuses are never sufficient. Moving abroad was one of the best things that happened to me, and I would be lying to say it didn’t.
Making excuses about money, friends or family are not acceptable; money can be made back and as for friends and family, they will remain where you left them when you return. It may seem rude, but it is very true.
Seeing something so beautiful so different from your own eyes can not be taken away from you, making a new home so quickly takes courage and patients and time, but its possible. With that, i guess the phrase of there is ‘no place like home’ will become more understandable as you read about my travels and stay in Singapore.
As for now, enjoy, comment, interact and make suggestions.
Reflections (2025)
Reading these words back now, I can see how living in Singapore shaped the traveller I am today. The person I became. The global friends I made! Friends from Singapore, Sweden, China, the US, New Zealand, and so many other places around the world. I have a home in all these countries and more. It shows me today that God always wanted so much for me back then, like he does now. And that I have also tried to match people by shrinking myself sometimes. Not anymore!
Since then, I’ve called many places home: London, Morocco, a hostel bunk in Australia, or even just the quiet comfort of a night bus to Laos.
The lesson still stands: me studying in Singapore was and still is the best decision I ever made it my life. I am so happy that I didn’t let excuses hold me back. Even when people tried to tell me that what I are doing is not the ‘norm’. Opportunities rarely come twice. And sometimes, saying yes to a new adventure is how you find your truest sense of home. For me that was being one of the international students in Singapore.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure to check out more from my Student in Singapore series:
Want to start your own journey? Download my free Solo Travel Starter Guide and begin planning today. And if you want to join me in the Solo Travel Challenge, even better!
Speak soon, and thank you so much for being here with me today! I really appreciate it. If you have any questions, please just send me a DM via Instagram.
Love MBV x
P.S. I also have the raw version of this on Substak, which you can also read here.
