I’ve seen lots of beautiful places.
The coast of Wales just north of Port Eynon im 2000. A walk alone through deep mud. Most of the time there’s grass to stand on, but it gets more and more sparse. It’s windy and cold. Grey sky. Craggy cliffs down to the ocean, which is crashing against them. It’s overcast, in October. Sheep or maybe goats stand there looking at me as I walk by.
Rainforest hike with my summer roommate in Oregon. I think near Cannon Beach, maybe? Summer of 2003. We’re somewhere at the coast hiking a trail he picked out. Soft needle bed underfoot, so much green foliage everywhere, golden-green light diffuse throughout. I remember thinking of the earth as a pole in four dimensions. I imagined life growing up the pole as time progressed. Then I imagined it growing down the pole(ie into the past) also and I imagined life starting earlier and earlier in history, as life pushed its way into the past by somehow hurling information backward to affect previous evolution, to make the RNA strand that got it all started happen sooner.
Burning Man 2006, first night there. We had arrived in the morning, and we were amazed, but people kept grinning at our amazement saying “just wait until night!” Then it was night and we saw this endless puddle full of glowing microbes. A primordial soup of lights bobbing and waving off into the distance. And as people would finally appear, it was as faces dimly lit, and all of them glowing with the same sense of awe we had. And then some days later a spider mech walked by, driven by some guy just showing off his garage project, which was an eight-legged robotic walking vehicle. And that was just par for the course. I didn’t even blink by that point, because seeing a working mech for the first time in my life was no biggie. Seemed totally normal by that point.
So many more too. Lots of moments of beauty in really mundane places too. Just a state of mind. Back in college I was really depressed but would sometimes have what might have even been some kind of seizure. Suddenly everything would be so fucking beautiful and I’d feel a profound sense of joy. Those lasted like 10-30 seconds. I’d just stand there wondering at whatever was in front of me, wondering at all of existence with a dopey slack jawed face on the sidewalk. Then I’d feel it coming down, and I’d be back in my crushing depression, just slogging along through the grey world.
This is poetry. Thank you for this spiritual experience, of reading it.
People give too much credit to the pyramids in Egypt. It’s structurally impressive but there’s nothing to do there but stare at stacked blocks.
Luxor & Aswan on the other hand is beautiful. There are some temples there that blew my mind, very intricate and well made. I also never realized how big the nile river was until I got on top of a ship there, it’s very wide.
Also the valley of the kings
The most beautiful place I’ve seen so far was Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan, China. That was in 2017, months before the place was severely affected by a huge earthquake.
We took a bus to the top of a mountain in the national park and then hiked all the way down through lush forests. For a good portion of the hike, we didn’t meet a single soul and felt like the last people on Earth. I felt like I saw everything nature has to offer in a single day: tall, lush trees; majestic waterfalls; shimmering lakes in every imaginable shade of blue; exotic birds; rivers that had two different colours (yellow and blue-ish) because of different sediments.
But the most stunning view for me was the view to the mountaintop near our hostel. It was like a postcard or a painting. Underneath the bright blue sky, you could see light grey mountaintops covered in snow. At the foot of the mountains, there were lush meadows, yaks chilling on them, wild flowers growing everywhere. And right beneath those, seemingly endleelss fields of lavender. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!
Do you plan to travel back there, to stay a week or a year or so sometime? I bet you could find a meditation or yoga retreat happening nearby.
I know it’s weird, but the view of the graveyard my grandparents are buried in. It’s in a mountain village, and they put the graveyard right at the edge looking out at the other nearby mountains. It looks very green and untouched, just a few old style stone houses and sheep scattered about. Also the crisp cool air in your lungs and the sun in your face makes it such an experience.
Not weird, that sounds beautiful.
Thanks! I never think it’s appropriate to take photos there to remember it by or to share with others
I agree with not taking photos. You should only see it in person.
New Zealand in general. Milford Sound in the rain when there’s thousands of waterfalls. The pristine wilderness.
There is an absolutely lovely island off the coast of Maine called Monhegan Island. It’s a mix of biomes with tall rocky cliffs, wide placid fields and a deep aged forest. If you’re nearby you should definitely check it out.
No thank you, I’ve read enough Stephen King books to stay far away from Maine. No killer shape shifting clown is gonna get me.
Tulum. It’s an ancient Mayan city in the Mexican Caribbean. The main palace of the city is on top of a little plateau. I was focused on hiking, watching my steps, expecting a bit more of dirt ahead, but when I looked up I saw the palace, the sea behind it and some little ships in it, the blue sky with birds flying all around. I literally gasped and cried for a bit.
Came here to say Chichen Itza.
Ancient sites are really incredible in person.
Deosai national park. The highest plateaus in the world I think, incredible and beautiful experience. Just google it and take a look at a few images and youll see.
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Btw if you like to explore nature when you travel, pakistan is a very cheap and beautiful place to visit. Particularly the north these days.
Banff, Jasper, and yoho national parks. They are all absolutely beautiful.
The lakes and rivers with their turquoise, the view on the valleys from the mountains…
Vancouver island was also very nice to experience.
Up at the top of the Harmony Express chairlift on Whistler in winter there is a view of Black Tusk peak off in the distance. It is a vertical black mountain top untouched by the white snow below it.
During fall the leaves of the golden larches in Manning Park on Mt Frosty turn golden amongst the green evergreen trees. There are streaks of gold trees along the mountain top and it is an amazing contrast especially because a month before that the mountain is all green.
Haven’t seen much yet, but driving through Colorado and its mountains comes to mind. Absolutely gorgeous state, and the roads going through the lush green forests and steep mountains + rock faces were awe inspiring to me, having spent most of my life in California cities.
I love how the landscape keeps changing. Variations on a theme and the theme slowly changing.
Impossible to pick one but several US national parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon…so breathtaking and unique. Many locations in Hawaii from coral reefs to volcanos.
My first thought was Grand Prismatic, just after dawn.
Cool enough that the thermal features create a fog over the water, and more importantly, all the tourists (I was a hotel employee in the park) were still in bed. Had the boardwalk area all to myself.
I think I just sat in contemplation for half an hour, which if you knew me would say is impossible. Very peaceful.
For me it was the Dolomites, in Italy. I considered abandoning my current life and moving there several times during my trip.
When I was 16 my mom had a conference in Mexico and it was at a resort under construction, so therefore really cheap with plenty of extra rooms, so she brought me along and even let me invite my girlfriend.
It was snow and ice when we went to the airport. We stopped in Guadalajara airport to transfer flights. My girlfriend had no coat or anything on. Like shorts and a t-shirt and some sandals. I was like “is that gonna be enough?”.
I knew it was warmer in the south, but I didn’t realize the tropics have like zero winter. My experience with going south was like 10 - 15 degrees warmer after driving south for six hours.
Anyway we had a week to just do whatever at this remote little conference center / resort. The bartender let me buy beers. There were some boogie boards and sea kayaks. There was a bay you could swim across if you were a strong swimmer. There was a conference going on full of American businesspeople doing some kind of spiritual work. There were people going up and down the coast in sailboats and yachts, dropping anchor in the bay and boating over. People who lived on boats continually.
I vowed I would move to the tropics. The warmth, the sea, the chill attitude.
So that was when I was 16, and I’m now 40, and I still haven’t done it.
I’ve felt that pull in other places too. Tokyo was one, actually. I kept thinking “If I just went ahead and moved here, I would not regret it”.
It was winter, the snow was fresh and, well, snow white. The trees had crystals growing on their branches, that in the morning light glittered like chandeliers.
Mackinac island. It’s the best island in the world, nothing else compared to the aroma of fresh made fudge wafting around the island. No other island does it better than mackinac
