Anyone else have a particular place…

[ShadesOfPemberley]

… where you just feel calm, happy and ‘at home’, despite having no actual connections there?

For me it’s Scotland. Specifically the Highlands I guess. I know it’s stunningly beautiful but I’ve been to many other stunningly beautiful places in the world and never felt the constant pull to return, or the immense peace and happiness I get when I am lucky enough to visit.

I have no Scottish ancestry whatsoever, didn’t spend holidays there as a child… just yearn to be there all the time (and quite often daydream my way through horrible city transport where I actually live by looking at my pictures of Scottish Highlands to make me less stressed!)

I did first visit Scotland right after a time of trauma in my life and found the landscape incredibly soothing and healing. Maybe it’s that?

A friend asked me the other day, surprised I was planning my next holiday back in Scotland (again) if I have family connections there or anything but I don’t. I just feel ‘at home’ there in a way I never have anywhere else in the world. Including places I really DO have connections.

Does anyone else have a place like this, where you feel connections you don’t actually have?! (Or does everyone feel this way about the highlands cos they’re just so lovely?!)

I really like the North East of England. I do feel very at home there despite not being from there.

I have lived in Scotland and grew up in NI, so those places are very cosy and like home to me, but I think that's because of me living there.

I'm in the SE England now and have been for about 14 years. I don't love it, but it is home and I miss it when I go away.

i love North Yorks and Northumberland too, just never felt the same lure I have to a bit further north of the Border! Gorgeous parts of the world though. Have all that lovely sky (can you tell I live in the overbuilt SE too?!)

I really love it at the White Horse Hill in Uffington. The formation of the landscape is so extraordinary. It's on the Ridgeway, you can see for miles, and the horse itself is in this amazing curved steep valley. Recent archaeological work has shown the horse figure is quite ancient - they haven't been sure before. Even though it's a popular tourist site I've never been there when it was busy - even on a bright summer day.

My DS went to boarding school and we stopped there for a picnic lunch once when I was taking him back to school for the summer term. It was his GCSE term and I was so calm I didn't even get agitated when he announced that he didn't think he'd done enough revision during thee holidays!

Borrowdale. I have been going there since my teens. I go every chance I can get. Used to be able to get up on the mountains but sadly no longer. Still love it.

A spa hotel about an hour from where I live, I go for the day every 6 weeks and it’s my happy place.

I should probably have asked in the thread title if other people have a ‘happy place’… definitely fits the definition!

I think Cape Town as well, I’ve only been twice, I always wanted to go and I have no idea why. I’ve never felt so at peace and calm. I literally cried on my first time when my holiday ended.

Snowdonia for me, there something about being surrounded by mountains that makes me feel calm

Rome. I can’t tell you how shocked and disappointed I was to find out through genealogy testing that I have zero Italian heritage!!

I could see that white horse and hill from my grandmother’s house. As I child I would spend hours on the garden swing looking across at the hill.
It is one of my two calm, home places ( the other is The Highland, like the OP)

Beautiful Days festival

London.
I love London. I left some years ago and wish all the time that I hadn't, because I miss it so much. All of it. If I could I would go back and never leave!

I live in the Highlands.

We get a lot of people feel that way, until they come to live here, then they change their minds pretty rapidly 🤣

Now this I can totally believe!!! 🤣 Much as I imagine I’d be the exception 😉

Perhaps in a former life then, can you see yourself in a toga?

County Durham. I would move there tomorrow if I could and regret only ‘discovering’ it five years ago.

Scarborough for me. I love the huge beach, can sit for ages just listening to the sea. My little piece of heaven

Not particularly original, but the Lizard in Cornwall.

I love BD too. Did you go this year?

London
Coleton Fishacre (in Devon)
Stockholm Old Town

Liverpool, I could never get bored of singing Beatles songs with strangers down the cavern. I can't wait to go back in January with my husband. We met when we were 17 in a chat room through our love of the Beatles and we are now both 40 and I will never tire of Liverpool.

The Yorkshire Dales (I'm a born and bred Londoner). Specially Swaledale because it feels so remote.