IN 2005, I LOST the ability to travel for pleasure. Until then, I would work until I’d banked about $30,000, then quit, leave the country and drift across the world until the money ran out and I took another job.

Then I had my first child, and he introduced me to a different kind of journey. I became absorbed in each fleeting stage of my son’s life, until it was more important to me than my own, and then my perfect baby daughter came four years later. Although I was, among other things, a travel writer, I no longer enjoyed travel for its own sake. It seemed futile and immature.