In July, while walking through the streets of Linz, I was suddenly stopped by three local middle-school-aged kids in a park near the music theater. It seemed to be a school assignment—they were filming video interviews on their phones. I don't speak German, so they did their best to interview me in English.
"What does a holiday mean to you?"
"What's the best place you've ever been?"
The timing felt strangely too perfect. I had come all the way to Linz to find out whether AI and our ZINE app could let us see this city from a different angle.
I had come from outside to look at their city—and now the kids who lived there were the ones asking me, "Where do you want to go?"
Different cultures, different histories, different backgrounds, different languages. Normally, we probably would have just passed each other by. But give us one simple format—an interview—and a conversation is born.
Maybe these are the moments we actually remember from traveling.
By the way, when they asked, "What's the best place you've ever been?" I answered:
"Hmm... New York, I guess."
After coming all the way to Linz, that was a remarkably unimaginative answer.
If they asked me now, I'd probably say:
"I don't know."
Because not knowing means there's still more to talk about.
