I haven’t been to the airport at Tel Aviv for precisely a year. I’ve gone down from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv perhaps four times in that year. I’ve tooled around the West Bank a little. And that’s it.

I’ve spent almost the entire last year in one city. Quite a place, of course: Jerusalem. But not a place with great opera or art galleries or even particularly fine dining. No marijuana cafes or idyllic vineyards or tapas bars. No beach, no girls in string bikinis. No Tuscany. None of the things that attract me when I do travel. I’ve seen all the sights and, well, let’s forget about the politics….

I’ll get to what prompted my stay-at-home year later. First let me tell you it’s great for one’s writing to be in one place.

Some writers would disagree. I suppose I used to be one. I was taken with Paul Bowles’ idea of traveling as he wrote and incorporating into his writing on Tuesday something that happened on the road on Monday. It’s a method I think works well for a while.

But travel isn’t always conducive to concentration. When I used to zip around Europe for book tours and festivals, I found it was almost entirely a creative blank. It was relaxing – because I didn’t take my kids with me – and that’s not to be sniffed at, as anybody relishing a lie-in at the Leipzig Penta Hotel after a few years of waking to the sound of little feet by the bed would tell you. Still it’s when I was at home and could have an undisturbed, routine day that I found my ideas came.

Ideas, and the undistracted hours in front of the computer putting digital pen to paper.

So a year ago, when my wife was five months pregnant with our daughter Mari, I decided to quit the road. With the arrival of the baby, it became evident that it wasn’t only book tours that had bitten the dust but recreational travel too. I didn’t mind a bit — and we used to go every three months to Italy, as well as visits elsewhere and back to the US and UK to see family.

I was happy to be in the house. Every night. I only go out to my yoga classes (admittedly that’s five times a week), to walk my son to and from school, to roll my daughter around the park, and to attend a bimonthly confab at a Jerusalem café with a pal of mine who edits The Jerusalem Report and gathers interesting types to celebrate the printing of each issue.

I think this has changed my writing somewhat, too. I’m more contented with the result of the writing, but in particular I enjoy the doing of it very much more, as well.

It could be that this contentment is less to do with the writing process and more the fact that my four year old son doesn’t feel insecure about Daddy’s forthcoming trip (because there isn’t one) and therefore doesn’t act up…much. A happy little boy makes for a happy household, that’s been my observation of late. (And when he’s not happy, oh my God…)

This weekend we’re off to Greece to escape the Passover holiday in Jerusalem. It’s a lot of money to pay just so we can be in a place where it’s possible to buy bread. But it’ll be worth it. I’m excited about travel for a change.

I almost forgot what the airport looks like.