The first time I came back from Wales in 2023, I think I mostly couldn't believe it happened. Going from the slightly depressive, not-much-exciting world I live in to this place on another continent where everything looks different, public transport is viable, the people talk different, the things to see are different—at the risk of sounding ridiculous about a place where people live, it was magical. My world became going back.
In 2024, basically immediately after losing my job in February, I booked a trip back. It was even more comfortable and lovely than the first one, but I had a distinctly different reaction to flying back: I was depressed for basically the whole of the fifteen months between then and 2025, and it actually started to get between me and Caby as a result. After dreaming about it for so long, going back from being in person and sleeping in the same bed and spending all that time together to just being names on a Discord contact list again was hard.
It haunted me after the 2025 trip as well. I'd gone home and found myself holding the bathroom door as I opened it, the same way I have to do at Caby's house. My chair would squeak and it would sound like a guinea pig, and I'd think of her guinea pigs. I was left with the stuff I'd bought, the good memories, some paperwork (getting these pages going), and otherwise, it was back to life over the Internet. I'd say the seven months after this trip were the bleakest I'd been through in a little while—no doubt not helped by the slow disintegration of both our pets and my maternal grandmother.
I write this page out of love and optimism, though. This is some thoughts on a place like Wales from someone from the US, why it sticks with me as hard as it does, and some things I've realized that have made the 3,700 mile distance feel less far.
An outsider perspective on Wales
I remember, back when I used Reddit, innocently mentioning that I'd used the DSi camera for taking photos around Wales on the 2023 and 2024 trips. I got this slightly vexed reply from someone who happened to be Welsh—in his mind, the fact that someone had thought of the place positively was strange to him, because he was so well used to it being a target for derision or outright hatred from outsiders.
Wales is interesting to me for how often it gets forgotten or outright not known about by especially Americans. We know Ireland (we might even know there's two Irelands!), we know Scotland, we know England (though I apologize for the people who seem to think it's a synonym for the whole of the UK), but Wales is always strangely an afterthought. I'll ask people excited about their trips across the UK if they're traveling in Wales at all, and invariably the answer is "if there's time". It's very rarely people's proper destination.
As a place, though, that's just made it more special to me. I feel it's this place only I know about sometimes. There's so much history and it's so relatively compact and easy to get around in comparison to my little corner of the US that it's somewhere I feel able to explore, and explore singularly given how often it's overlooked.
Look, you want castles? There's lovely ones across England and Scotland, but Wales has them too. Roman baths and abbey ruins are dotted about. If you like caves, Wales was traditionally coal miner territory, and there's plenty of historical ones. Museums? Two around Cardiff, plenty more in the country. Snowdonia remains a fixation for me ever since Caby told me about it early on in our friendship.
Absolutely I'd love to see England and Scotland, and the nice thing about the UK is that that compactness and connectedness extends through each country, but Wales just has my eye. I'm sure the differences day-to-day are more minor than I think—I'm a relatively sheltered and less-than-worldly individual so far, despite the excitement I get exploring—and maybe it's the bias of dating a Welsh girl. I dunno. Something about it sticks with me.
And hey, of the reaction Welsh people have had to me, that guy aside, there's this occasional amusement and curiosity people have in kind. Twice during this past trip did I get asked where I was from, both by older people. Both were eager to tell me that Pennsylvania has the largest Eisteddfod outside of Wales itself. Further, we have a surprisingly large Welsh diaspora, and an attempt was made during the age of the Colonies to establish a Welsh-speaking colony around where present-day Montgomery County is. Pennsylvania was also traditionally coal miner country.
I dunno! Maybe it just feels home-y, despite having no Welsh blood in me that I know of.
The reasons why I do love it
- I mean, we can start with the obvious one: my Caby! Someone who knows me so well and understands me so well, someone with my eagerness to explore and fascination with somewhere else (in her case, the US and all its strange roadside attractions and oversized ambitions). We can have these long conversations together, we can be silly together, we run along the same aesthetic interests, and we both enjoy a really good meal together.
- I was pleasantly very surprised to see how much I enjoy time with her family also! Y'know, they're more private people, so I don't want to say tons and tons about them (though Trys is also around and on Somnolescent hosting if you want some more of what fixations come up in the household often), but the trips out as a family are always a lot of fun, and they're just as chatty as she is. Genuinely some of the best conversations I've had with people have been with her folks on these trips. Very glad they seem to really enjoy having me around as well.
- The day-to-day of shops, food runs, school and work, and transit are the same as anywhere else, but I do enjoy the independence these trips offer me. There's been times I've run into town by myself, or gone off on wanders deep into the night by myself, and it really helps to make these trips not feel like living on top of another person or needing to be watched over at all times. With me and Caby, assuming it's a reasonable distance by train line or we can book a coach and lodging somewhere else, we can honestly visit anywhere random in the UK together, apropos of nothing. There's a lot of potential in every trip!
- I always enjoy how these trips give me the ability to look into a different world culturally. Obviously, while I'm here, we're mostly watching British shows, but I really like to take it as an opportunity to sit down and engage with the movies, shows, and games other people are into. Just check the media page for all of that. On a more minor scale, Caby's dad is always eager to show me (and everyone) videos on his phone, which I think annoys Caby, but I'm always curious, and they're usually pretty funny too.
- Local shops are always a good time! If you haven't yet, you should totally read "A Tale of Two Welsh Record Stores" on Letters from just after the first trip. Needless to say, Kellys and Spillers have both become regular haunts for me any time I'm in the area. Cardiff is just big enough to have a variety of funky stores (shoutout Americandy), but not so big it becomes a nightmare to get around, or becomes super tourist-y. A little tourist-y is okay.
- The history! Seriously, I could go on forever about the castles and ruins I've seen, and hopefully will continue to explore for as long as I'm able to get into the country. Some of them are properly staffed and maintained places courtesy of Cadw, stuffed with audio tour guides and signs telling you about Victorian bedrooms and castle construction, but others are just rocky shells of buildings full of greenery where you can go to have a picnic. Whatever you're in the mood for.
- On that note, it is kind of neat the way that historic buildings are just nestled into the town squares and city centers of places all across Wales. One of the visuals that sticks with me from all these trips is standing out on the water surrounding Caerphilly Castle and the outer walls perfectly framing a Superdrug. Just not something you get in the US. Cardiff Castle is across the street from like a Welsh gift shop.
- I know this isn't sustainable, and I do hit a point each trip where I try to cut back, but it is a chance to cut loose a little financially and dietarily. It's Christmas, I can buy a bunch of CDs and also a and have some tasty snacks.
Now, I should say at the end here that it's not that the US or Pennsylvania doesn't have awesome places to see (I have fond memories of visiting the Gettysburg memorial with my older sister on the same day we hit up Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum and Candy Emporium), and I'm also keenly aware a lot of the excitement of these is because I'm coming here on vacation, and that it'd all be a lot different were I living here. That said, by how much, really? Maybe we should all find something new to see occasionally, and maybe that doesn't need to end just because I've also got a job.
The things that have made it not feel so far away
Obviously, when you go from a world of not getting out much and retail tedium to this world of romance, snacks, freedom, history, and whimsy in another country, getting back can be kind of a gigantic drag. As fun as the holding pattern of trips in between jobs is, what comes up always comes down, and as I said in the intro, I was coming down significantly hard.
The solution is obviously to get out more, but the real thing that keeps me going now is actually threefold:
- Becoming more comfortable and confident as a person on my own
- Having Caby able to visit me
- Working towards naturalization proper
Without getting too uncomfortably personal, part of what's made the return journey so difficult every time is how attached I am to Caby, and often not in the healthiest ways. Through a lot of talks with her and a lot of realizing that I need to live for me, do things I love on my own more, and make sure everything I get up to is personally rewarding first and foremost, I've stopped looking at the trips as, and I know how sad this is to say, the only time when good things happen. It's had the added benefit of making the time we do spend together a lot less strained, also, because we can just focus on having the best time possible in that moment rather than desperately making it last as long as possible.
With Caby close to being out of school now, talks of her coming to visit me in the US (and thus able to visit the North American Somnolians as a whole!) have become more common, and they're a comfort also. A trip only once a year one-way is still rather often, but if both of us can visit, then the amount we can see each other becomes a lot more frequent and flexible. That helps bridge the distance even further.
Finally, there's just moving on in life. I realized that, because I wasn't sure I could pull it off, I'd stopped actively pursuing the steps that'd get me into the UK on a visa and through what's called naturalization, or technically "indefinite leave to remain". That's not becoming a citizen, but gaining access to the UK in full, for work or travel, without the need for a visa and the limits on stay time that come with them. That requires a lot more training, education, and work experience than I currently have, and it looked like a lot, whereas these visits only cost $700 and maintaining a passport and my PreCheck for blowing through the airports quicker.
But then I remember how difficult and unlikely even visiting looked not that long ago. I remember the time spent learning how to apply for all the documents necessary to travel, and where I could get them filed, saving up for the plane tickets, fitting it into our schedules, and a great many nights at work spent pining and lost. We made it this far, and we have a great many options for keeping it going.
I will live here someday. Until then, I love it for what it is and I'm always sad to see it go—but happier I was able to visit at all.
Thank you to my Caby and her family for letting me stay and visit, now and always <3