Hi, this is Dylan Thurus, and you've reached the Atlas Obscura Podcast line.

I'm not home right now, but please leave me a message about places that you've traveled that instantly felt like home to you.

After the beep.

My name is David Allison and the place in the world where I felt instantly at home is Paris. I grew up in the prairies in Canada.

I spent most of my adult life on the west coast of Canada in Vancouver, which was once an enormous rainforest.

And I get to travel the world in my job

as a public speaker, so I'm accustomed to being

in all kinds of different places.

But years ago, along with my then newly acquired husband was on our first European vacation

together. We'd been visiting museums and galleries in London and

Amsterdam and Belgium and a bunch of other cities.

And we ended that trip with three or four nights in Paris.

And an hour or two after arriving,

I knew that something was up,

because something just felt different. I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was the

winding cobblestone streets in the Moray district or maybe it was just the size and scale of the

buildings or the intense, you know,

unfamiliar sense of history growing up in such a new country like Canada.

But there was as kind of cliche as it sounds, something in the air in Paris. In fact, I turned to Chris, my husband

and I said, I suddenly believe in reincarnation because I'm certain I've lived here before.

Now since then I've been really fortunate to go back and visit Paris many times and

sometimes with Chris and sometimes without and and every time I'm there I get that same

...