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.
Hmmm, I’ll go with Silver Falls (OR). Need to revisit.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
