On Old Houses, Returning, and Finding a Sense of Home in San Miguel de Allende

I'm leaving San Miguel de Allende after almost three months, and already I'm thinking about coming back.

"Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Homesick in Heaven

We spent two months in San Miguel de Allende last year, nearly three this year, and we've booked the same house for next year. I have a theory that if you return to a place three years in a row, it becomes yours. Not in any legal or possessive sense, of course, but something changes. You begin to know your way around. You recognise faces. You develop routines. You stop feeling quite so much like a visitor.

Over the past eighteen months, we've travelled to some extraordinary places. The Sacred Valley in Peru, the Galápagos Islands, and countless towns and cities in between. Places that have left us amazed, that we've dreamed of seeing, and that I'm grateful to have experienced. But there's a difference between a place you want to see and a place you want to live.

For reasons I can't entirely explain, Mexico, and San Miguel in particular, feels like home.

Perhaps it begins with the house. Casa Lisa. My mother's name.

We're staying in Centro, on one of the steepest, most crazily cobbled streets, in a house that feels entirely like us. Old walls, unexpected corners, beautiful objects and a certain romantic, decaying grandeur. Elegance without pretension. I love San Miguel's aesthetic, its surprising refinement mixed with crumbling facades, worn stone steps, enormous wooden doors and courtyards hidden from the street. Nothing is too polished. There is beauty in the imperfections, in the layers of history and the evidence of lives lived before ours.

Vignettes from our home in San Miguel

And then there are the colors.

Terracottas, burnt sienna, unexpected flashes of pink and teal. A palette that belongs to a painter. The whole town seems to have been assembled by someone with an extraordinary eye for color and beauty.

Or perhaps it's the people.

So many of our family and dear friends have come to stay with us here. The house has been full of conversations, long lunches, dinners that stretch late into the evening, and the comfortable chaos of having people you love under one roof. My favourite sight is the entryway filling up with dozens of shoes, belonging to the people I love. It's become a place of shared memories rather than simply somewhere we've rented for a few months.

And then there's Noah's history with San Miguel. His grandmother, Ooli, lived here, in a house near Parque Juárez, and he came to visit as a child. Long before I knew this town, it was already part of his family's story. He remembers when the basketball courts in Parque Juárez were a giant pond filled with pink flamingos. I love that he has memories of a San Miguel, and that our own story here is now being added to his.

San Miguel itself is an endless procession of life.

There are parades, ceremonies, church bells, fireworks, music, and celebrations that seem to appear out of nowhere. Just when you think you've settled into an ordinary Tuesday, a mariachi band comes marching down the street, or fireworks erupt over the rooftops. The town can feel like one long, rolling party.

And what I love most is that so much of it isn't put on for tourists. These are celebrations for the people who live here, rooted in faith, family, neighbourhoods and traditions that existed long before visitors arrived with their cameras.

The Mexican people we've met have been extraordinarily kind, generous and creative. There is an appreciation for art, craftsmanship, design and beauty that seems woven into everyday life. Flowers, textiles, ceramics, painted walls, wonderful old furniture. Even the simplest places have an extraordinary sense of style.

And, of course, there's the food.

The markets, the little neighbourhood restaurants, the street food, the long lunches, the wonderful ingredients and the pleasure of eating somewhere that takes its culinary traditions so seriously.

But none of these things, on their own, quite explain it.

We've stayed in beautiful houses elsewhere. We've eaten extraordinary meals, met wonderful people, and visited places with histories every bit as fascinating. Yet I haven't felt the same pull to return.

Maybe home has less to do with where you're from than where you begin to imagine your future.

I find myself thinking about the next time we'll be here. The same streets, the same morning walks, the familiar shops and faces. The pleasure of arriving somewhere and knowing where the coffee cups are kept, which window catches the afternoon light, and where to go for dinner when you don't feel like cooking.

Perhaps that's what happens when you travel for long enough. You realise that not every beautiful place needs to become part of your life. Some are meant to be visited, admired and remembered. Others invite you to stay a little longer.

I'm not sure whether San Miguel feels like home because we've found a house that suits us, because of the friends and family who've filled it, because of Noah's childhood connection, or simply because I love the town itself.

Perhaps it's all of those things.

We're leaving again, but this time there's no real sense of goodbye. We already have a date to return.

And if my three-year theory holds, perhaps next year San Miguel really will be ours.

Or perhaps it already is.

P.S. If you find yourself in San Miguel next August–November 2027 do get in touch. This magical city is made for sharing, long lunches and meeting new people/friends. There's always room for another at the table.