When does a place feel like home?

[caddywally]

Not the house, the area. I moved away from the city I grew up in when I was 18, and 8 years later it still doesn't feel like home - but neither does the place I grew up in as I've been away for a while. Does anyone have experience with this?

I think I do, yes. I'm a expat and I've moved around a lot, and DH is US military so since we've been together we've moved a lot too.

I don't think I've ever really thought of anywhere other than the house I'm living in at the time as home in the loosest sense.
I tend to think you take your "home" as in your partner/DC with you, and that home isn't a geographic place, it's you, your soul and the people you take with you on the journey through life. That your "home base" comes from the core grouding and strength within you, and from your family if you have one, but that places and everything else is just transient, just another bus stop on the route.
Sorry, no real way to say that without sounding like a knob .

Why, does it bother you? Do you feel like something is missing?