Embracing Seasonal Change When Your Life Moves Between Countries

When the Seasons Don’t Match Your City: Living Between Countries, Finding Your Own Rhythm

When your life unfolds across multiple cities, the seasons stop being defined by temperature alone — they become about what you’re embracing. In LA, fall begins in sunglasses; in London, it starts with a roast after a walk in the rain; in Vancouver, it arrives quietly, with a cold that settles into your coat before October has even decided what it wants to be.

Living between countries means you rarely meet the season people expect you to be in. You’re always arriving mid-chapter, slightly out of sync, learning to catch up with the light, the weather, and the version of yourself that belongs there.

When the Season Arrives Out of Order

Fall in LA feels almost fictional. There’s a certain cognitive dissonance in seeing pumpkins lined up under palm trees, iced coffees still sweating in the heat, and the sun setting in late-summer gold — a feeling I wrote about more in this Los Angeles piece. Your body knows it should be craving knitwear and warm drinks, yet your environment is softly whispering: “Not yet.”

London doesn’t wait for your internal clock. It hands you autumn the moment you land — puddles reflecting amber leaves, the air thick with the smell of rain and cinnamon, and weekends that lean into long walks, markets, galleries, and evenings that naturally turn inward.

And then there’s Vancouver: a city that doesn’t flirt with autumn — it fast-forwards you to winter. Coats re-enter rotation early, the cold rolls in with a sense of permanence, and nature shifts dramatically, demanding stillness and layers long before your calendar insists it’s the season for them. As I always say, “blue skies, lies” — the brighter the sky looks, the colder the air will be. I only truly noticed this when I spent October across LA–Vancouver–London, moving through three different versions of the same season in one month.

When you live this way, the season isn’t something happening around you — it becomes something you consciously choose to step into.

Seasonal Living for the Creator Who Moves Between Cities

Vanocuouver “Blue Skies, Lies.. it will be cold outside!

For creators who travel or move between cities, seasons no longer behave as a neat four-part year. They overlap, repeat, or arrive out of order. You might experience early summer in LA, late autumn in London, and a near-winter two weeks later in Vancouver — all within a single month.

What anchors you, then, isn’t the weather — it’s rhythm.

Your routines become your constants: how you ease into mornings, what creativity looks like in each place, the rituals that help you arrive mentally, not just physically. In a life lived across borders, “seasonal living” becomes less about the external world and more about the atmosphere you choose to carry with you.

Rituals That Travel With You

Traditional autumn markers aren’t guaranteed when you’re flying through time zones, so you begin to create your own seasonal anchors.

A seasonal ritual doesn’t need to be grand; it just needs to feel like a gentle arrival. Maybe it’s swapping your iced latte for chai the moment you decide it’s autumn, regardless of the temperature outside. Or updating your camera roll with a new colour palette as the light changes. Or shifting your movement routine — tennis in LA, long walks under umbrellas in London, Pvolve in your Vancouver living room when the weather keeps you indoors. And sometimes, a ritual is as small as adding cinnamon to every hot or cold drink — no matter the country or the weather — because it’s PSL season, and that flavour alone can bridge the distance between climates.

These become your internal markers of time when the external ones don’t match the calendar — rituals that help your body and mind “arrive” in the season, even if the landscape hasn’t caught up yet.

Let Each City Teach You a Different Version of the Season

The beauty of living between countries is that you discover there is no single “correct” way to experience a season.

London invites a nostalgic, cinematic autumn — trench coats, galleries, warm bakes, theatre nights, and weekend markets that feel like scenes from your favourite film. It’s reflective, cultural, cosy, and a little romantic.

LA offers its own version of fall — lighter, freer, sun-lit. Outdoor days, ocean air, iced coffee culture, tennis mornings, golden-hour beach walks, and yes… tacos. The kind of tacos that become a non-negotiable part of your week — a flavour you crave, a routine that tastes like LA. Fall here isn’t about slowing down; it’s about extending warmth, energy, and movement.

Vancouver leans into nature — crisp air, early layers, richer greens that deepen into winter hues, and mountains that quietly shift the season’s energy from social to grounding. It’s the kind of autumn that encourages more cooking at home, more journaling, more candles, more rest.

Move between them, and you learn that each city gifts you a different emotional rhythm — one isn’t better or more “authentic” than the other. They simply offer different ways of being.

A Creative Practice for Noticing the Season

As a creator, your camera becomes the way you process the season — not just record it.

Photography becomes a grounding ritual: a way to notice the small, ordinary markers of change that others might rush past. The shift in morning light through your windows. The first time you opt for a warm drink. The way outfits change, or don’t. The textures — knits, leaves, waves, rain on windows. In London, the light streams into my studio differently in November — no longer hitting the wall to the right of me like it does in August, but straight into my eyes as if to remind me the season has turned.

Try capturing a season as a story, not a postcard. Instead of the obvious leaf-covered path, photograph the objects, moods, colours, and transitions that show what the season feels like in each city you move through.

If you live across countries, this can become a personal project:
4 cities × 4 seasons = your year in visual chapters.

It’s less about aesthetic perfection and more about awareness — a visual journal that reminds you that your life has seasons, even when the weather forgets to show them.

You Don’t Need to “Match” the Season to Belong to It

Living in one place teaches you what a season “should” look like. Living in multiple places teaches you that it doesn’t matter.

You don’t need to be cold to feel autumn. You don’t need snow to feel winter. You don’t need heat to welcome summer.

Your season can be intentional — something you step into through choice, ritual, mood, and creativity.

Home isn’t a season. It’s a rhythm you create, wherever you land.

For the Creators Living Between Cities…

Living seasonally across cities is a reminder to stay present, adaptable, and intentional with how life unfolds. If you enjoyed this perspective, you may also like my reflections from London in August, where slow moments and city living shaped the rhythm of the month.

Enjoy more seasonal inspiration on Travel · Mood.