When you think of the Alps, it tends to be Switzerland or Austria, but the Haute Savoie région in France is equally stunning. It's less expensive than Switzerland and less um... Austrian.. than Austria
Annecy, Samoëns, Sixt fer à Cheval, Abondance, Evian, Grand Bornand, La Vallée Verte, Col de Grand Saint Bernard... the list is endless
The beach. 🌅
Whenever it is empty enough, so that i can clearly hear the sea waves 🌊, it just feels like all the noise in my head is gone.
We have a beach near Santa Cruz we try to camp at every year when my wife gets done teaching for the summer. It is a veritable paradise.
Kauai. Everywhere you drive is worth a picture. Rainbows and waterfalls everywhere.
The top places would be Ne Pali Coast and Waimea Canyon.
Tenerife, the pic doesn’t do it justice but it was just the greenest, most quintessential “island life” type place. And they had the best octopus I’ve ever had. Definitely going to revisit it at some point.
Iceland, by far. So different than everywhere else. Stunningly clear, crystal-blue water, rough, alien terrain, and some if the most amazing waterfalls you'll ever come across.
Runner up is Sintra Portugal, just North of Lisbon. Beautiful mountains, incredibly green, filled with so many different types of castles from all the different cultures that have occupied the country over the years.
Hmmm, I'll go with Silver Falls (OR). Need to revisit.
My first thought is Olympic National Park in Washington. It's just everything I think of when I think of the beauty of nature. Huge old trees, moss covered rocks, mountains, cliffs, rivers and waterfalls. It was like visiting an enchanted forest. I half expected to see fairies and wood elves in the distance or come across Rivendell. Pictures really don't do it justice.
Gijón, Asturias, Spain. It was a beautiful day, a breathtaking 5 hour train trip through the mountains from Madrid, and an absolutely stunning coastline. It's one of the places I'd like to go back to if I'm vacationing in Europe again.
I'm from Florida, and since I grew up here never thought of it as beautiful, right? It's flat, scrubby, etc. But I was away for school one year and when I came back realized just how gorgeous all that palmetto scrubland is, our beautiful beaches with the sand dunes and shorebirds, the sky, oh my God the sky here. And the variety of birds we have, and the lizards everywhere.
Mountains always I find stunning in an overwhelming way, like hit you over the head beautiful. But the gentle, diverse beauty of the natural land in Florida is so deep, so alive when you pay attention.
My in law's summer cabin. In the middle of nowhere, only swamps and forests and a small lake. Sun rising / setting over the lake, with possibly morning mist. No worries. No noises, just birds chirping. Sitting on the porch just taking it all in. Amazing.
Kotor, Montenegro is the most beautiful place I'd ever been to that I'd never heard of. The whole Aegean Sea is incredible.
Edit: Meant "Adriatic" Sea.
Kotor is on the Adriatic.
Gotta be a tie between the Caribbean, Bermuda, and Alaska
Mike's Sky Ranch in Baja Mexico I think might be number 1.
It's in the middle of nowhere along the Baja 500 course, at about 3,700 ft above sea level.
The whole place is lit by generators, and when they are turned off for the night, it is pitch black.
The transition from bright lights and noise, to dead silence as the Milky Way becomes visible from the mountain top, is a sight I will never forget.
Other contenders would be looking down into Seventh Heaven from the top of Whistler mountain in Vancouver, or the view from the top of the north face of Alyeska outside Anchorage.
Certain mountain in Central Bohemian Uplands. After short-but-intensive hike upwards, you get to wide park-like (the trees naturarilly grow such that they left good pasatges between themselves) mountain-top, with view-points from where you can see half of Bohemia. Then I slept here, and the night was bright, and even though I usually don't like the lights of cities, that time it looked like the stars were on the sky and also on the land.
