First of all, since you move from XAMPP and have Mac, I would recommend you trying Valet first: https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/valet.
It's much easier to install and manage.
Regarding homestead, you have Parallels and Vagrant installed.
Add a Vagrant box by running command in terminal:
vagrant box add laravel/homestead
Then install Homestead:
git clone https://github.com/laravel/homestead.git ~/Homestead
Run init script:
cd ~/Homestead
bash init.sh
Open ~/Homestead/Homestead.yaml file to adjust configurations. Be really careful with indents and signs.
Set the provider:
provider: parallels
Map the folder with website files to the virtual box:
folders:
- map: ~/code
to: /home/vagrant/code
Add your first website config to init nginx:
sites:
- map: firstwebsite.test
to: /home/vagrant/code/firstwebsite.test/public
Add a record to the /etc/hosts to point domain to your virtual box
192.168.10.10 firstwebsite.test
Start the virtual box by running:
vagrant up
Try to load it: http://firstwebsite.test
Source: https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/homestead