Expat Life

London Is Killing My Desire to Travel

This city has the whole world inside it

Adele Arbi
Curious Compass
Published in
6 min readDec 5, 2023

--

Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash

A few years ago, I heard about The World In One City.

This is a project that Owen Powell and Alex Horne started on October 24th, 2006 (United Nations Day), and finished on October 24th, 2007.

Their aim was to prove that London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world, by endeavouring to meet and chat to a citizen from every country in the world who currently lives and works in London.

They managed to meet people from 189 countries. According to the UN, there are 192 countries in the world, so they proved that at the very least, London contains over 98.4% of the nations of the world!

After three years of living in London, I have not counted the number of different nationalities I have met, but I definitely feel like I have experienced something close to those numbers.

Because it doesn’t have to be a full on meeting to experience the culture of another country in London. London has a million touchpoints with all the cultures, and it undoubtedly does feel like the world in one city.

Tasting Traditional Foods

--

--

Adele Arbi
Curious Compass

A curious soul exploring and documenting life. London-based Tech Expat | Muslim | Polyglot | Bibliophile | Explorer