#368 Seeing your hometown skyline appear over the horizon

Neil Pasricha

Big buildings full of flickering lights, faded paint on rusty water towers, and mirrory windows of familiar stores welcome you all the way back home…

Smile and hit the gas as familiar feelings soak back into your brain. Smooth streets and bumpy sideroads, flashing orange lights and dented stop signs, and tipsy toddlers on teetering bikes riding past your front door…

Going away is overrated.

Coming home is

AWESOME!

Make it an awesome Christmas.

Photo from: here

41 thoughts to “#368 Seeing your hometown skyline appear over the horizon”

  1. Coming home IS awesome … the beauty of a hometown skyline, however, is a foreign concept to me (unless you count a power plant smokestack, water tower, or Walmart silhouette or something) ;)

    Mmmhmm, Awesome Christmas for sure! Problem with that is that all my friends have already experienced Awesome Birthdays, Awesome Moving Days, Awesome Everydays … so I’ll have to either expand my group of gift-receiving friends, or they’ll have to have their Awesome Christmas after the release of the second book!

    P.S. I speak from experience, though — it’s a perfect present!

    1. haha Walmart soooo counts… even though they are everywhere. We have a lot of power plants here too, but none of them are really along the main roads you’d travel if you were traveling.
      Oh, I am super excited for the second book. I keep the first one in my desk here at work. And it certainly is the perfect present!

  2. I’m from San Francisco and I have to fly home now because I live in Florida. You don’t get to see the skyline of major cities whose airports are not really in the city :( But I miss my drive when I was in college and got to go over one of the bridges to get home!

  3. Yeah, let’s be honest, most hometowns don’t have a skyline. It’s one of the things that makes New York City special (I go to school here). Trust me though, I cannot wait to see streets lined with palm trees once I go back home to Florida.

  4. My town doesn’t really have a skyline….

    but it’s always a nice feeling coming into my town, because there’s this really tall church and you notice it before anything else and you know you’re home. :)

  5. I live in Sheffield, England (6th biggest city in England) and my skyline was the biggest mall in the county and a pair of cooling towers, but ever since they pulled down the towers, theres just the mall and it never looks right when im coming home

    1. I’m studying in Sheffield for the semester and as much as it feels like home…I miss my New York skyline.

  6. Depending on which way we go when we ‘go away,’ we don’t consider being home until we see the capitol. If we go any direction but west then we pass it on our way home, but if we go west, I don’t consider being home until we are acutally home. It always a big sigh of relief when I see that big gold dome in the distance.
    The mountains kinda make it difficult to see any kind of actual skyline.

    1. Ok…this has nothing to do with today’s post, but I just won $102 off the radio! That just put a nice little jump in my step today.

      1. Woo hoo! Yay for free stuff! :)

        Congrats! Did you get on the actual radio? You know.. where you get to say the “phrase that pays” or whatever, and shriek when they told you that you won??

        1. I was on the radio, but this station doesn’t really make you say anything.
          Santa is very happy right now. He’s gonna need that money Friday.

      2. Congrats, that’s awesome :) i would TOTALLY take an extra $102 right now – merry early Christmas!

  7. Pittsburgh, PA has a gorgeous skyline to come home to. The best part is, no matter which way you come into the city, it sort of just jumps out at you from behind a mountain/hill, or as you come out of the tunnel into the city (voted one of the best sights in the USA).

    I for one enjoy coming home to it everytime I leave the city. Even though I’ve only lived here for a couple years now, it’s my home now, and it’s good to be home!

  8. I love living outside of Philly for this! Beautiful skyline & visual landmarks as I come home, it’s awesome :)

  10. I don’t often see my skyline when I’m driving (if I go far away, it’s nearly always by plane). But I do like the SD skyline, and get a real kick when I see it on TV or something.. like last night, the Chargers were playing on Monday Night Football, and whenever they come back from commercial breaks, they often lead in with scenic shots of the city they are in, so they’ll show picturesque shots of the skyline with the water.

    I always get a little jolt: “Hey! I live there! And it’s on TV!!”

  11. This is the MOST awesome one for me. When I’m returning to Toronto after I have traveled, I completely relax when I finally see the cityscape (CN tower) and I know that I am home……

    1. Toronto’s not my home; it’s home for my brothers. Still, I can completely relate.

      My family’s originally from Kingston, and the Mahones sang an awesome song about the Kingston skyline:

  12. I live near the beautiful city of Vancouver, British Columbia, and every time I drive into the city I feel so proud and excited that this is my home. One of the best cities in the world, believe it, come and see :))!

  14. There is nothing more beautiful than seeing my city and the summer sunset in the background. Philly is most GORGEOUS in the summer. thanks for this post!

  15. I am in college and driving down my street when I come home is the best feeling ever! Little kids running up and down the street, parents sitting on front porches talking to neighbors, and the trees making a tunnel down my street are the things that I appreciate in my life and thank my parents everyday for giving me this life. I love my hometown!

    P.S. I am from St. Louis City :)

  18. Every town should have a great “entrance” to drive into – ours does and it’s nice to get back and see the “Welcome to Boonah” signs, the hills and all things familiar after a weekend away.

  19. Coming home IS awesome. Driving through the Fort Pitt tunnels at night, bursting out into the brilliant Pittsburgh skyline…no feeling quite like it.

  20. thank you for all the heart-warming things you post ! feeling homesick now…can’t wait to go home for christmas, while listening to chris rea’s – driving home for christmas :)

  21. A lot of the time, I find it hard to pinpoint a city that I call home. But there is nothing like seeing the little dotted islands of Hong Kong greeting me back like oLd friends, then all the buildings, then finally home itself. Oh, and the skyline’s pretty nice too ;)

  22. What is amazing is tha my home town skyline in Niagara Falls has changed so much in the past 15 yrs….. The great part is that I have a secret spot that only I know of where you can see the skyline perfectly!!

  24. This skyline is of my hometown, Warsaw:) so amazing to see it during a very busy exam period far far away from home:) THANKS!!!

  25. We once moved to Houston, and I used to daydream about being back in Long Island and driving around. I was really surprised how much I missed New York. Although when I lived in New York City and I would go back it did not feel the same. Maybe cause the big city is cold.

  28. I was in the U.K. for seven months and when I came home and saw the Vancouver Skyline, knowing my family was waiting for me in the airport I was so happy I got all teary eyed. The U.K. was great but it wasn’t home <3

  30. Vancouver is spectacular, especially lights twinkling in view at night.
    Sunrise and sunset over the mountains and ocean too, I am overcome with emotion.

  31. Wow, I just realized there is a comment section here with comments from people! I just saw the sky line, literally, the milky way over my place in La Gomera, and it surely feels like being home. ;)

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