The Cities That Change You Long After You Leave
There are videos you watch, and videos you feel. This one from
EpicExplorationsTV EN is very much the second kind.
▶ Watch the Video on YouTube
It’s a long, cinematic journey through 50 of the most beautiful cities on Earth –
from Kyoto’s temples and Singapore’s vertical forests to Lisbon’s hills, New York’s glass canyons,
and Budapest glowing over the Danube. One planet, one screen, fifty different ways humans tried to build a life worth looking at.
The part that caught me isn’t just the beauty. It’s the idea in the opening narration:
cities reveal their “truest essence” the first time you visit them.
That strange fusion of jet lag, light, noise, smell, and the feeling that for a moment you are nobody –
unindexed, unlabelled, free.
Three Cities, Three Different Kinds of Awe
You could watch this purely as a bucket-list video – and it works perfectly that way. But if you slow down a little,
each city is a different psychological experience:
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Singapore feels like a prototype of the future – trees that aren’t trees, gardens grown under glass,
nature and technology shaking hands instead of fighting.
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Venice looks like it should not exist at all – a floating labyrinth of alleys and bridges that feels more like a dream
someone forgot to wake up from.
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Kyoto is a time warp. Cherry blossoms, bamboo forests, geisha slipping along stone streets –
it feels less like travel and more like visiting a memory that belongs to humanity itself.
Other cities hit different parts of you: Chicago’s skyline and river, Prague’s spires in the fog,
Bangkok’s temples glowing while tuk-tuks scream past, Marrakech measured in colours and smells,
Budapest soaking in thermal baths under winter steam.
The video doesn’t just show places; it shows ways of being human in public.
Why First Times in Cities Feel Like Falling in Love
There’s a psychological reason that your first time in a city hits harder than your tenth.
Your brain is flooded with novelty: new light, new language, new rules of how to cross a street without dying.
It has no script yet. No shortcuts. No “oh yeah, this again.”
So it does what it does when you meet a new person you’re drawn to:
it works overtime to map patterns and possibilities.
Could I live here? Could I belong here? Who would I be if this were my daily backdrop?
That’s why watching this kind of video can feel almost like a simulation of falling in love:
your brain is rehearsing alternate versions of your life in fifty parallel cities,
while you’re just “watching YouTube.”
Travel as Evidence
At Self Evidence, the question is always the same under everything:
What is this evidence of?
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These cities are evidence that humans can turn geography into emotion – mountains into skylines, rivers into stories,
alleyways into whole childhoods.
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They’re also evidence that the world is both too big to “see it all”… and small enough that one cheap flight can
drop you inside somebody else’s normal.
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And finally, they’re evidence that our sense of “home” is more fragile and more flexible than we think.
You don’t have to visit all fifty. You may never leave your country.
But even watching from your couch, you remember something important:
you live on a planet, not just in a postcode.
Related: The 7 Psychological Biases That Secretly Shape Every Relationship • The Rise of C. J. Cauldin – Miss Referee’s Origin Story
Shout Out to EpicExplorationsTV EN 🌍
Huge thanks to
EpicExplorationsTV EN
for putting this together. Their channel is basically a living atlas:
virtual tours, “best of” lists, culture snapshots, and starting points for real-world trips.
If you want more:
- Virtual tours of top destinations
- Guides to plan your next trip
- Videos on local cultures, traditions, and smart travel tips
You can explore the channel here:
EpicExplorationsTV EN.
Where would you go first?
If you could only pick one city from this video for your “first time in 2025,” which one would you choose – and why?
Drop it in the comments. Think of it as a tiny act of rebellion against sleepwalking through your own life.
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🧩 Block 0120: [50 Most Beautiful Cities to Visit in 2025: One Planet, Infinite First Times]
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