There is a feeling I only experience in beautiful hotels.
I remember sitting on the terrace of a small hotel on Capri just after sunrise. Nothing extraordinary happened that morning. I had coffee, watched the sea, and listened to the kind of silence that only exists before the world fully wakes up. And yet, somewhere between those completely ordinary moments, I began imagining an entirely different version of my life. Thoughts that rarely appear at home came effortlessly there, as though the room itself had quietly made space for them.
I felt the same in Paris. What fascinated me most was not the city itself, but returning to the hotel after hours of wandering through unfamiliar streets. Closing the door behind me felt strangely symbolic. For a brief moment, I belonged nowhere. I was not at home, I was not working, and I was not fulfilling any of the roles that usually define me. I was simply a woman in a room, with a notebook, a window, and enough silence to hear her own thoughts.
For years, I assumed this feeling came from beauty. Beautiful interiors calm the nervous system. Natural materials, soft lighting, and thoughtful proportions invite us to slow down. But the older I get, the more I believe beauty is only part of the explanation.
I think hotel rooms offer us something much rarer.
They temporarily free us from the identity we perform every day. They give us space to become the most current version of ourselves.
What fascinates me most about hotel rooms is that they quietly suspend the identity we carry with us at home. There, we are surrounded by constant reminders of who we have been. The wardrobe still holds clothes bought by an older version of ourselves. The kitchen remembers routines we repeat without thinking. Even the walls have witnessed conversations, disappointments, celebrations, and countless ordinary mornings. Our homes slowly become archives of our personal history, gently reminding us of the person we believe ourselves to be.
A hotel room has no memories of us. It does not know our habits, our mistakes, or the expectations waiting for us when we return. It does not care what we do for a living, how much we have achieved, or whether things have been difficult lately. It simply gives us an empty space, free from the stories we have attached to ourselves over the years.
Perhaps this is why travelling can change us so deeply. Not because a hotel changes who we are. It simply removes the constant reminders of who we think we have to be. Almost without noticing, our identity becomes less attached to the past and more rooted in the present moment.
I often wonder whether these are some of the few moments when we experience life as it actually is. We spend so much of our lives carrying yesterday into today while worrying about tomorrow that we barely notice how little attention we give to the only moment that is truly real. In a hotel room, yesterday is not hanging in the wardrobe, and tomorrow has not yet walked through the door. There is only the person sitting by the window with a cup of coffee, watching the morning arrive.
Maybe that is why we suddenly begin imagining different lives. Not because we become someone else, but because, for a little while, we stop confusing our history with our identity.
Ever since, one simple question has kept returning to me: if a hotel room can make us feel so free, what exactly are we returning to when we go home?
Perhaps the answer has very little to do with the place itself.
Maybe what we call “home” is also a collection of invisible expectations. Every room reminds us of unfinished conversations, old habits, and previous versions of ourselves. We wake up and unconsciously continue being the person we were yesterday because everything around us quietly encourages us to do so. The environment is familiar, but so is the identity we have built within it.
Hotels interrupt that cycle.
For a few days, there is no history waiting for us. We are not surrounded by objects that have silently witnessed our fears, ambitions, or disappointments. The room asks nothing of us because it knows nothing about us. And perhaps that is why we suddenly find ourselves writing in journals again, reading for longer than usual, waking up with new ideas, or imagining entirely different futures.
The interesting part is that nothing has actually changed.
We are still the same person.
The only thing that disappeared was the constant reminder of who we thought we were.
I believe there is nothing worse in life than being sentimental.
I often wonder how much of our identity is genuine, and how much of it is simply repeated because our surroundings keep reflecting it back to us. Maybe this is why change feels so difficult. We try to build a new life while living inside an environment designed by an older version of ourselves. The wardrobe still belongs to yesterday. The routines belong to yesterday. Even the stories we tell ourselves every morning belong to yesterday.
Perhaps we do not need a hotel room to become someone new.
Perhaps we need to learn how to return home without immediately becoming the person who left it.
Because the present moment has never asked us to carry our entire past with us. It only asks us to be here. Not as the person we were five years ago, nor as the person we hope to become five years from now, but as the only version of ourselves that has ever truly existed — the one living this moment.
Maybe that is the real luxury hotels offer us.
Not beautiful interiors.
Not exceptional service.
But the rare opportunity to remember that, for a brief moment, we can be free from our own story.
And perhaps the greatest freedom in life is discovering that we were never our story to begin with.
A key part of growth in our lives, and of becoming an improved version of ourselves, is the ability to leave the past behind. It no longer exists, and it no longer has any meaning. The only thing that matters in life is what exists today. Time is not linear; that is simply our earthly illusion. If you live in the past, your future will never happen.
As a person, I have learned to live here and now. I no longer think about what happened, what did not work out, or what might have been. I respond to what is happening today, and never in my life have I moved forward so quickly. Everything accelerated, and it has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
I could go into quantum leaps here, and the idea that different versions of us exist simultaneously across different timelines, but I will not. There will be time for that on another occasion. What I would like you to think about now is your own identity — who you are when everything familiar disappears.
There is one thought that always finds me while travelling.
No matter how beautiful the place I am going to is, I usually arrive with one suitcase. If I am staying longer, sometimes two.
Everything I believe I need to live somehow fits into a relatively small space. A few shirts, dresses, a notebook, a toothbrush, several pairs of shoes, and perhaps a book I am unlikely to finish before returning home. And, truthfully, I always bring plenty of things I do not actually need and never use. I am still learning how to pack. The truth is, I am not very good at it.
There is something strangely grounding about it, because for a little while life becomes remarkably uncomplicated — with excess baggage or without it.
At home, we slowly build our identity around what we own. Our wardrobes become larger than our lives. Shelves fill with objects we once believed would change us. We surround ourselves with possessions that quietly promise comfort, status, or permanence, until one day it becomes difficult to tell where our identity ends and our belongings begin.
Travelling interrupts that illusion.
Standing in a hotel room with a single suitcase beside the bed, it becomes obvious how little of what we own is actually essential. The person who wakes up in Capri is exactly the same person who fell asleep at home, despite leaving behind almost everything she owns.
That thought has stayed with me for a long time.
Perhaps we spend too much of our lives building spaces that express who we are, while forgetting to build the person who will one day have to leave all of them behind. Objects can make life more beautiful. They can tell stories, preserve memories, and elevate everyday rituals. But they can never become the foundation of our identity.
Maybe that is why travelling feels so honest. When almost everything familiar disappears, there is very little left to hide behind. No carefully curated shelves. No wardrobe full of different versions of yourself. No symbols of success, or of its absence. Just your thoughts, your character, and the way you move through the world. Perhaps that is what every hotel room is quietly trying to teach us. When everything unnecessary is left behind, we finally discover what was essential all along.
Or perhaps that is only what we like to believe, because even then, we still have something. Even if it is just one suitcase.
So what happens to a person when even that disappears? When they stand in an unfamiliar world, and the only thing they have is who they are?
I will answer that question in next Friday’s essay.
For today, I want to leave you with another thought: who are you now, when you step outside the space that defines you — outside the space of memories and thousands of outdated versions of yourself, outside the person you were yesterday?
From an energetic perspective, I personally love freeing myself from the past. I have always been drawn to moving, travelling, changing my wardrobe. Only openness to the new allows you to jump into a different reality — the one with which the current version of you resonates most.
Remember: the only thing that matters is here and now.
xx
L
