Question: I am very new to laravel, I saw that in every laravel tutorial there is Laravel homestead which is confusing for new learners. In fact, until now i don't understand what it is and why we are using it?

My question is very simple - can new learners start without homestead? Also I just wanted to know the importance of Laravel homestead in a very simple terms.

Answer: 
Laravel Homestead is just a virtual machine (VM). It helps in preventing polluting your development environment. Assume you have two projects. One project is based on Laravel 4 and the other is based on Laravel 5.3. Developing and testing of the two projects Without using a VM would land you into some problems. Do you install two web servers on you development machine?

Laravel docs do not go into the basics of why or hand hold you on the process. I would strongly recommend you look for [Jump Start PHP Environment](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0994182643) by Bruno Skvorc. It is a short book but it holds your hand into why you need Homestead and also guides on how to configure the box.
Sure, You can go without homestead. You can use xampp, UwAmp, Wamp or any other server that's facilitating to execute php. Homestead is an environment that could also be used. Homestead is pre-packaged vagrant box with wonderful development environment. For more details just read <https://www.sitepoint.com/6-reasons-move-laravel-homestead/>