The Roads You’ll Never Travel Again

I love travelling. When I was young, I wanted to go places, but the opportunities didn’t come easily. As I grew older and found my independence, I made my own way—sometimes by travelling for free, sometimes by paying my own way—but I made it happen.

In my early twenties, I ended up in northern Argentina, in the Córdoba region, in a place called Los Gigantes. I was there for a hot air balloon festival, part of a balloon team. But what I remember most isn’t the festival itself—it’s what came after.

The Long Drive South

I wanted to go south, so I accepted a ride from an Argentinian from another team. The drive to Bariloche would take at least two long days. I had the time, and more importantly, I had the hunger to see more.

From Los Gigantes, we drove south and stopped at the entrance to Aconcagua National Park. We slept in the car that night, and when morning came, I saw it for the first time: the highest mountain in the Americas, rising up against the sky. I didn’t know it then, but this mountain would become intimate to me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I would try to climb it three times. And only on the third attempt would I reach the summit.

There’s a Spanish saying: “La tercera es la vencida”—the third time is the charm. That was my case with Aconcagua.

The Words That Stayed

We kept driving south, but not along traditional roads and highways. My travelling companion took us through mountain passes, along dirt roads, down snowy paths that we sometimes had to turn around from. Somewhere on one of those unmarked stretches, he said something to me that I’ve carried ever since. I paraphrase him here:

Enjoy the views. You may never come here again.

Simple words. But they changed something in me.

I never did go back to that place. I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to—I don’t know where it was. Those winding roads, that particular view, that moment in time with that particular person—they exist only in memory now.

The Realization

But here’s what those words made me understand: this happens constantly. We visit so many places. We meet so many people. We experience moments that feel infinite while they’re happening, but are actually fleeting. We pass through chapters of our lives thinking there will be time to return, to do it again, to fully appreciate it later.

There usually isn’t.

This realization—that so much of what we encounter, we will never encounter again—has become something I don’t take for granted. It’s changed how I travel. It’s changed how I live.

Every road might be one I’ll never travel again. Every person I meet might be the only time our paths cross. Every view deserves to be truly seen, not just passed through on the way to somewhere else.

That’s the gift that the Argentinian driver gave me, somewhere on a snowy mountain pass I’ll never find again.