Every time I go to Paris, I want a cigarette.
This would be a perfectly ordinary sentence if I still smoked.
I don’t.
I gave up years ago, and most days I barely remember cigarettes exist. I don’t crave them after dinner, I don’t miss them with coffee and I certainly don’t spend my afternoons romanticizing nicotine. Then I land in Paris, order a glass of Sancerre, sit outside a café and, without fail, my brain suddenly decides that this would be the perfect moment to light one.
I’ve learned not to trust that thought.
Not because I’m afraid of one cigarette.
Because I know it has very little to do with smoking.
Paris has always felt wonderfully unreasonable to me. It’s one of the few places where nobody seems to apologize for enjoying life. People spend three hours over lunch without looking at their watches. They sit so close together that complete strangers accidentally become part of each other’s conversations. Salted butter appears to be considered a basic human right. Nobody seems particularly interested in optimization, productivity or eating a salad simply because it’s Monday.
I become a slightly different person there.
I eat bread without negotiating with myself. I order dessert because it looks beautiful rather than because I’m hungry. I walk without checking how many steps I’ve done that day. I speak slower. I stay longer. I remember that life isn’t a problem to solve.
And somewhere between the second espresso and the people watching...
my former smoking habit politely clears its throat and says,
“Bonjour. Remember me?”
The funny thing is, I don’t think Paris makes me want a cigarette.
I think Paris makes me remember the woman who used to smoke.
I’ve always found that strangely fascinating because she’s still me. She isn’t a different person or a forgotten chapter of my life. She’s simply an earlier version of myself who apparently decided to stay behind somewhere between the cafés of Saint-Germain and the little streets of Le Marais. Every time I come back, she seems genuinely surprised that I no longer carry cigarettes in my handbag.
She also seems slightly confused by some of my other life choices.
She watches me hesitate before ordering a croissant, even though we both know perfectly well I’ll order it anyway. She smiles every time I ask for another basket of bread because, in Paris, bread somehow feels less like carbohydrates and more like culture. She reminds me that lunch is not something to squeeze in between meetings but something worth lingering over, preferably with good wine, better conversation and absolutely nowhere else to be.
I’ve realized that every city seems to preserve a different version of us. London remembers the ambitious one. Tokyo remembers the curious one. New York remembers the one who believed sleep was optional. Paris, however, remembers the woman who believed life should be savored rather than scheduled.
Perhaps that’s why I never really feel as though I’m visiting Paris.
It feels much more like Paris is introducing me to someone I used to be.
And every now and then...
she still offers me a cigarette.
The more I travel, the more I realize that cities have extraordinary memories.
Not because streets remember us, of course, but because we quietly leave pieces of ourselves behind wherever life happens. We like to imagine that we’re the same person wherever we go, yet anyone who travels often knows that’s simply not true. There are places where we become adventurous, places where we become reflective and places where we suddenly find ourselves doing things that make absolutely no sense once we’re back home.
Psychologists have a name for this. They call it context-dependent memory—the idea that places, smells, sounds and even the smallest details of our surroundings can unlock memories and behaviors we wouldn’t normally think about. I’ve always found that strangely comforting because it explains so many things that otherwise seem irrational. Why a certain song only feels right in summer. Why one particular street makes you nostalgic for reasons you can’t quite explain. Or why a city you’ve visited dozens of times can quietly convince you that ordering a second glass of wine on a Tuesday afternoon is somehow an entirely sensible decision.
Paris simply happens to be my favorite example.
The cigarette isn’t really about nicotine. It’s a souvenir left behind by a younger version of myself who once believed that sitting outside a café with a book and nowhere urgent to be was the definition of happiness. She still exists somewhere in the architecture, the cafés and the rhythm of the city. Every time I return, the surroundings gently wake her up before I even realize what’s happening.
Perhaps that’s why traveling has never felt like escaping everyday life to me.
It’s more like collecting different versions of yourself and occasionally going back to visit them.
I’ve started to think that the best trips don’t end when we come home.
They continue quietly in the way we live afterward.
Every city leaves something behind. Sometimes it’s a recipe you keep making long after vacation is over. Sometimes it’s a word that accidentally becomes part of your vocabulary. Sometimes it’s a slower pace, a different perspective or a reminder that there are other ways to move through life besides constantly rushing toward the next thing.
Paris has always left me with something different.
Not a desire to smoke, despite what my brain briefly suggests every time I arrive. It leaves me with permission. Permission to order the dessert without explaining myself. To sit in a café longer than necessary. To spend an afternoon wandering with no destination in mind. To choose pleasure over efficiency without immediately feeling guilty about it.
I’ve realized that’s the version of myself I always bring home.
Not the woman holding a cigarette.
The woman who remembers that life doesn’t always need to be measured, optimized or justified. The one who believes a long lunch isn’t wasted time, that buying fresh flowers on an ordinary Tuesday is a perfectly sensible decision and that some conversations deserve another glass of wine simply because nobody is looking at the clock.
That’s why I keep going back.
Not because I’m hoping to become someone else.
Because every now and then it’s healthy to be reminded that the person we’ve become doesn’t have to replace the person we once were. Sometimes the best parts of us are simply waiting in another city, patiently reminding us that we’ve been in far too much of a hurry.
I’ve stopped believing that we travel to become different people.
I think we travel to remember the parts of ourselves that everyday life quietly buries under routines, calendars and responsibilities. The person who returns home isn’t someone new. They’re simply someone who has remembered that there is more than one way to live.
That’s probably why I never feel sad when a trip ends.
I’m far more interested in what comes back with me.
Sometimes it’s something obvious. A recipe I learned in Italy. A slower morning routine inspired by Japan. A habit of buying fresh flowers after wandering through Parisian markets. More often, though, it’s something much quieter. A different rhythm. A different perspective. A gentle reminder that not every hour needs to be productive in order to be meaningful.
I’ve realized that every place I’ve loved has taught me a slightly different lesson about life, and together they’ve become part of who I am. Paris reminds me to slow down. Tokyo reminds me to notice details. New York reminds me to think bigger. None of those cities asks me to become someone else. They simply reveal qualities that were already there, waiting for the right surroundings to come alive.
That’s why I’ve never understood the idea of traveling just to collect passport stamps or photographs.
The most valuable souvenir has always been the version of myself I bring home.
Looking back, I realize that every place I’ve truly loved remembers a different version of me.
New York remembers the girl who believed sleep was optional and that every night was too exciting to waste on going home early. Paris remembers the woman who smoked and thought freedom looked best from a little café terrace with a glass of wine in one hand and absolutely no plans for the rest of the day. Japan reminds me of the woman who discovered that it was possible to fall completely, hopelessly in love... with a country.
I don’t miss any of those versions of myself.
I’m grateful to all of them.
Each one taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way, and each one quietly became part of the woman writing these words today.
I still choose freedom.
I simply no longer confuse it with cigarettes, chaos or the feeling that life always has to happen somewhere else. These days, freedom looks different. It looks like having nowhere urgent to be. Like lingering over dinner because the conversation is too good to end. Like booking another flight simply because a place feels like home. Like knowing that I can leave pieces of myself all over the world without ever losing who I am.
Paris still asks me if I’d like a cigarette.
I still smile.
And then I order another coffee instead.
xx
L
More notes on travel and the selves we meet along the way: The Weight of a Suitcase and The Strange Psychology of Hotel Rooms .
More: Identity - Place - Psychology - Transformation
