Actually, Everywhere Is a Bit the Same

For the first time in high school, I traveled abroad thanks to a project. I went to Portugal. At the time, it was one of the most beautiful things that had ever happened to me. In the years that followed, I kept revisiting those days in my memory because it made me realize that the world was far bigger than the tiny perspective I had known until then.

I grew up in a small town, so everything I saw there filled me with wonder: larger buildings, shops, the variety of goods sold in markets, the way people spoke and laughed. Everything caught my attention. There was also the airplane journey—I never forgot it. It felt as if I were inside a movie. I mentally engraved every sight I saw, determined never to forget, and tried to preserve every moment I experienced.

That journey became the beginning of all the trips I would take afterward. Through volunteer projects, school clubs, and a few coincidences, I visited many other countries. So far, I have seen about fifteen countries. When I think about how vast the world is, that number seems very small.

Now I am in Córdoba participating in Erasmus. And I have noticed something here: the more you travel, the more places begin to resemble each other.

The differences that once amazed me and made me ponder for hours now seem insignificant. Sometimes I cannot tell the difference between a road in a small village in northeastern France and one in the countryside of Thailand. I look at a street crowded with bar stools and restaurants and cannot say whether it is in Milan or Antalya. But people’s smiles? Yes, those are the same.

I look at an old bridge in Seville and an old bridge in Sivas. Perhaps I know nothing about architecture, but I cannot tell them apart. The only difference might be the tourists taking photos in front of them. Yet even the wonder on their faces feels familiar, as if I have seen it countless times before.

I imagine two fish-eating birds leaning over the water—one in Miami, the other in Porto. Thousands of kilometers separate them, yet both are touched by the same calmness, the same ocean.

All of this has made me realize: perhaps what truly matters is not the places themselves. What matters are the people you meet there and the memories you build with them.

I can eat a French sandwich for five euros in a back alley near the Eiffel Tower. But it will never taste as wonderful as the breakfast my mother used to make on Sunday mornings, dipping stale bread into eggs.

I can laugh for hours with friends in another country. But no joke will ever be as funny as the silly ones my closest friend and I made when I was fourteen—jokes only the two of us understood.

I can read a book in Central Park. But no book will ever replace the ordinary hours I spent as a child sitting in the park between neighborhoods on summer evenings, going nowhere at all.

I think places in themselves have no meaning. What gives them meaning is what we experience there. What makes a street special is not which country it is in, but who you walk down it with. What makes a meal unforgettable is not the recipe, but how you felt while eating it.

Perhaps as we travel the world, we come to realize not how different we are from each other, but how much we are alike.

And perhaps the beauty of a place is not in the place itself, but in the memories you leave behind, the people you share it with, and the meaning you give it.