Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Cuanto más viajo, más difícil es elegir solo un lugar, porque todos son distintos. - The more I travel, the harder it is to choose just one place, because they are all different.

Without accent: cuanto → used in constructions like «cuanto más…, más…», meaning “the more…, the more…”.
- Cuanto más viajo, más difícil es… = The more I travel, the harder it is…
With accent: cuánto → used in questions or exclamations (direct or indirect).
- ¿Cuánto viajas? = How much do you travel?
- No sabes cuánto viajo. = You don’t know how much I travel.

Because your sentence is not a question or exclamation, and cuanto is part of a comparative structure (cuanto más X, más Y), it does not take an accent.

What does the structure «Cuanto más viajo, más difícil…» mean exactly? Is it like English “the more … the more …”?

Yes, it is the standard Spanish equivalent of English “the more X, the more Y”.

Pattern:

Cuanto más + verb/adjective/adverb, más + verb/adjective/adverb
- Cuanto más viajo, más difícil es elegir…
  = The more I travel, the harder it is to choose…

Other examples:

Cuanto más estudio, más entiendo.
The more I study, the more I understand.
Cuanto más cerca estás, más feliz soy.
The closer you are, the happier I am.

Word order is quite fixed: you keep cuanto más… in the first clause and más… in the second.

Could I say «Es más difícil elegir solo un lugar cuanto más viajo» instead? Does the order matter?

You could put the cuanto más… clause second, but it sounds less natural and less standard. Spanish strongly prefers:

Cuanto más viajo, más difícil es elegir solo un lugar.

If you move it:

Más difícil es elegir solo un lugar cuanto más viajo. → grammatical but marked / literary.
Es más difícil elegir solo un lugar cuanto más viajo. → understandable, but feels off in normal speech.

For clear, natural Spanish, keep Cuanto más… at the beginning.

Why is there no yo in «Cuanto más viajo…»? Shouldn’t it be yo viajo?

In Spanish, the subject pronoun (yo, tú, él, etc.) is normally omitted because the verb ending already shows the person:

viajo = I travel (1st person singular)
viajas = you travel
viaja = he/she/it travels

So:

(Yo) viajo → Yo is optional.

People add yo only for emphasis or contrast:

Cuanto más viajo yo, más me gusta España (no tú).

In your sentence, there is no contrast, so just “viajo” is the natural choice.

Why is it «más difícil es elegir» and not «es más difícil elegir»?

Both orders are grammatically correct:

Más difícil es elegir solo un lugar…
Es más difícil elegir solo un lugar…

Difference:

2 (Es más difícil...) is the most common, neutral word order in everyday speech.
1 (Más difícil es...) puts emphasis on “más difícil” and sounds a bit more expressive or stylistic. It’s not strange, but slightly more literary/marked.

So you could also say:

Cuanto más viajo, es más difícil elegir solo un lugar…
This is perfectly natural too.

Why is elegir used here? Could I say escoger instead?

Both elegir and escoger mean roughly “to choose/pick” and are widely understood in Spain.

In this sentence:

elegir solo un lugar
escoger solo un lugar

are both correct. Subtle points:

In Spain, elegir sounds a bit more common and slightly more formal/neutral.
escoger is also very common; some speakers prefer one or the other by habit.

Important: elegir is irregular:

yo elijo
tú eliges
él elige
nosotros elegimos
vosotros elegís
ellos eligen

Why is solo written without an accent? I’ve seen sólo before meaning “only”.

Modern standard spelling (RAE) recommends writing solo without an accent in almost all cases, whether it means:

“alone” (adjective):
- Estoy solo. = I’m alone.
“only” / “just” (adverb):
- Solo quiero un café. = I only want a coffee.

Your sentence:

…elegir solo un lugar…
= …to choose only one place…

Here solo = “only / just”, and no accent is the usual modern form.

Historically, people wrote sólo (with accent) when it meant “only”, but now the accent is considered optional and usually unnecessary. Many writers in Spain simply never use the accent on solo anymore.

Could I use solamente instead of solo here?

Yes, you can:

…más difícil es elegir solo un lugar…
…más difícil es elegir solamente un lugar…

Both mean “to choose only one place”. Differences:

solo is shorter, very common in speech and writing.
solamente is a bit more formal or emphatic, like English “only” vs “only/just/merely”.

In everyday Spanish from Spain, solo is more frequent here.

Why is it porque and not por qué?

Spanish distinguishes four forms:

porque (one word, no accent) = “because” (conjunction)
- No salgo porque llueve. = I’m not going out because it’s raining.
por qué (two words, accent) = “why” (in questions)
- ¿Por qué no sales? = Why aren’t you going out?
porqué (one word, accent) = “the reason” (a noun)
- El porqué de su decisión es desconocido. = The reason for his decision is unknown.
por que (two words, no accent) = rarer; appears in some special grammatical combinations.

In your sentence:

…más difícil es elegir solo un lugar, porque todos son distintos.
= …because they are all different.

So porque = “because” is the correct form.

In «todos son distintos», what does todos refer to, and why is it masculine plural?

Todos here is a pronoun meaning “all of them”.

It refers back to los lugares (the places), which is:

masculine
plural

So the pronoun must agree:

todos = all (of them) referring to los lugares

And distintos is also masculine plural, agreeing with todos:

todos (ellos) son distintos
= they are all different / all of them are different.

The noun lugares is not repeated because it’s obvious from context.

Is there any difference between distintos and diferentes here?

In this context, no practical difference:

todos son distintos
todos son diferentes

Both normally mean: “they are all different” / “each one is different from the others”.

There are some subtle stylistic or regional preferences, but in standard Spanish from Spain, either is fine here.

Why is the verb viajo in the present tense? Could it be he viajado (I have traveled)?

Viajo (present) here expresses a general, ongoing tendency:

Cuanto más viajo…
= The more I travel (in general / as I keep traveling)…

If you say:

Cuanto más he viajado, más difícil ha sido elegir solo un lugar…

that shifts the meaning to past experience up to now:

The more I have traveled, the harder it has been to choose just one place…

Both are grammatical, but:

Present (viajo) → focuses on an ongoing process; sounds more immediate and general.
Present perfect (he viajado) → focuses on accumulated past experience.

The original sentence is talking about an ongoing, evolving situation, so viajo fits very well.