When my twin sister and I were born to British parents in rural Somerset, our parents had two criteria when it came to picking our names. First, they would not choose any name that was currently in the top 40 for girls, and secondly, the names would have to work in many languages and across many cultures. They foresaw the future that their name choices would impact on our lives with a future living abroad and growing up as third culture kids.

My international upbringing is what I am most grateful to my parents for. I am incredibly privileged to have grown up in places that some people can only dream of going to on holiday. I spent my childhood in Costa Rica and my teenage years in Switzerland and I also have vague infant memories of a couple years in Azerbaijan and Haiti. As a family we had yearly summer pilgrimages to the UK, where we would spend a month traveling around and visiting extended family.

“I grew up thinking that it was normal to have a father away for half the time whilst he travelled to all corners of the world in his job as an aid worker”

While I was pretty familiar with lounging about on tropical beaches, I didn’t see snow or build a snowman until my pre-teens. The first time I have ever lived in the UK was last year, when I turned up as a semi-international fresher. I dreaded the inevitable question I knew everyone would ask: 'where are you from?’

As clichéd as it sounds, my parents’ decision to move around when I was younger means now I am a citizen of the world. I get restless if I stay in one place for too long and I itch to travel. However, it isn’t all positive. I grew up thinking that it was normal to have a father away for half the time whilst he travelled to all corners of the world in his job as an aid worker. Sadly, this eventually took its toll on our family, and my parents got divorced a few years ago.

Since then, my mother has moved to the suburbs of Paris and my father has got a job in South Sudan. I still have my room in our apartment in Geneva, but I no longer have a core family home to go back to. There’s no popping home for the weekend, no two parents there to help load all my things into the car at the end of each term. Instead, I’ve become a pro at living out of a suitcase, shuttling between France, Switzerland and the UK each vacation.

I have no proper base; no place to learn to drive or get a summer job –but that’s okay. For me, home is not a place, it is a time and a place. Costa Rica was once my home, but only for the years 2000-2010. If I went back now, too much would have changed for it to still have that comforting feeling that we associate with home. Right now Cambridge is my home, but I know that it won’t be in a couple of years time.

Sometimes I yearn for a family home in a little town in England to go back to, with a room that I have lived in all my life and two happy parents welcoming be back. But I know that this is highly idealised and these thoughts are merely a result of the grass always seeming greener on the other side.

My parents’ choices may have left me feeling that, while I always have a place to stay, a roof over my head, I lack what many would call a 'home'. However, from this I have also learned that it is possible to feel at home anywhere – as long as I am with loved ones.

I’m nothing like my mother – am I?

Growing up as a third culture kid has been a blessing. My horizons have been broadened; I have gained the ability to speak several languages, made many a multicultural friendship and also an impressive collection of suitcases