If you can’t find the beauty in something, just look a little deeper.

Travel is not defined by a nine‐hour flight, nor the thousands of miles between cities. Travel is an embodied, transformative experience that changes you physically, mentally, spiritually. The quiet moments of driving to the airport, the ritual of checking in, the tension of navigating security lines. The journey begins long before the plane actually lands.

On a long flight, every second feels like a test of body and mind: cramped legroom, unexpected turbulence, and roaring engine. Each minute reminds you of the transformation that’s occurring, a change in both mindset and environment that will carry over into the final locale. Then, you finally land.

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The moment I set foot in Prague, I was immediately struck by the city’s attention to detail. Every clock, every bridge, every tower was imbued with an artistic touch - reminding me that our surroundings are living monuments. Each piece of infrastructure has an architect, a builder, a unique location, and feel. We forget this in our daily lives here in the United States, crossing across bridges known only for their name, and not for the personal touch, nor the spiritual or religious embodiment behind the infrastructure or divine purpose of creation.

Even the stones underfoot are carefully placed - entirely different from the uniformity of American concrete. Trams arriving every six minutes, drivers yielding to pedestrians, and historical castles everywhere. It’s as if the entire city invites one to pause, to see beauty in the mundane, and to appreciate the intricate dance between the old and the new.

Nothing compares to the awe of standing before a century old castle or an exquisitely carved sculpture. I wondered what a peasant might feel if they were confronted with such grandeur - it is a world’s difference between the dirt they would have lived alongside. The magnificence of human creativity is displayed, showing that regardless of class, location, or orientation, beauty is transcendent.

A cacophony of languages fill every tourist corner: Spanish, German, French, and then American, British, Australian, and Irish English. This commonality in Europe seems to be more than just a matter of proximity, but a focus on diversity and liberalism, a communion of cultures that are so close to each other geographically, and yet so far from one another in culture and language.

But there are tourist-less locales in the city filled with only one sound: profound silence. I found myself in quiet corners where the only sounds were the soft crunch of strollers on ancient stone and the distant murmur of slow-moving traffic - a silence that spoke as eloquently as the ornate sculptures and intricate facades that surrounded me.

Not every discovery was confined to Prague alone. A two and a half hour train ride to Dresden revealed a city that wears its history and future. Century old castles and grand museums stand side by side with sleek shopping centers and modern apartments. Open air exhibitions that presented current events alongside past traumas, giving heavy respect to those lost. This delicate balance between past and the present, between German reinvention, taught me that even in a city scarred by history, beauty and progress can coexist.

Whether traveling within the vast landscapes of New York or between European cities, subtle shifts change the way perspective is found - from bilingual signs in Czechia to the more singular expressions in Germany. Take the Delaware Water Gap, only two hours from New York, and compare the environments. Take Dresden and Prague, a similar distance, and compare the languages. How different the things so close to one another can be.

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Ultimately, travel is more than a physical relocation, it is a process that expands our every sense. It forces us to face discomfort, drop our routines, and to open ourselves to new experiences. It is an act of exploration and introspection, challenging us to embrace the transformation that comes from every moment spent in transit and appreciation. Just as every sculpture in Prague tells a story, every mile of the philosophical journey enriches our understanding of ourselves and the world.