Teshima Art Museum, Japan
Go for: the biophilic design
A drop of water. This is the inspiration—simple and pure, escapist and soul-soothing—behind the Teshima Art Museum in Japan. Its name is deceptive; forget paintings and toilet queues. Instead, the entire structure is an ultra-minimalist spatial expression of a droplet. The concrete structure lies on a hillside in Teshima, an otherworldly fishing island packed with art. The journey begins with a walk along a simple pathway, the sea on one side, trees and jewel green rice fields on the other. Then it comes into view: no corners and all curves, a biophilic design reduced to its most elemental form. Crossing the threshold is like entering a temple, the atmosphere shifting into near-sacred stillness. Inside, walls flow in layers of white and light, with two imperfectly circular openings bringing in skies, light, breezes, insects. Eyes are drawn to the ground, where ever-shifting patterns of tiny gem-like drops of water flow hypnotically, in constant creative motion. Spending time here—sitting, cloud-gazing, thinking, life-planning, writing (only in pencil)—is as soothing as sinking into a warm bath. It’s emptiness, but the kind that awakens your senses and inspires a sense of possibility rather than lack. —Danielle Demetriou
Tristan da Cunha
Go for: solo hikes on the most remote inhabited island
There’s only one way to get to the island of Tristan da Cunha, located about halfway between South America and Africa: a week of sailing across the South Atlantic. Fed up with the chaos of everyday life, I board Lindblad Expeditions’ National Geographic Explorer in Ushuaia, Argentina, to make my way toward the world’s most remote inhabited island. Population? About 230. Cell service and Wi-Fi? Not a whiff. Pure bliss. On a solo hike between the sustenance-giving potato patches and the isle’s main settlement of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, I pause to rest on a weather-worn bench. It might not be silent—the wind whistles in my ears, carrying with it the gentle clucks of chickens and deep lowing of cows—but, for once, my mind is quiet. Here, I gaze out at the ocean separating me from the pressures of the rest of the world, and I am simply present. —Stefanie Waldek
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
Go for: a peak into space–with hot springs, desert sunrises, and windy sand dunes
In August, I was invited to Spaceport America, the base for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial spaceflight—a portal to the cosmos set (purposely) in the middle of nowhere. This gateway to space rises from the New Mexico desert just beyond the town of Truth or Consequences, a destination that swapped its original name for 1950s game show publicity. The drive to the rocket’s dawn takeoff was dark, the Organ Mountains silhouetted against a pale blue sky. The spaceport’s curved glass structure reflected an early light, where the sun’s arrival tickled my face. At my nearby base, Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces, water rushed everywhere—cascading from tall fountains in the lobby and trickling poolside, mimicking the region’s Hot Springs Bathhouse District. After an hour-long journey, I arrived at the vast white sea of the world, White Sands National Park, and walked barefoot against the wind toward a clearing scattered with pockets of dried grasses bristling in the wind. And when it stilled, the quiet was so absolute that I could hear the tiny feet of a black beetle scuttling past me. —Jessica Chapel
Turtle Mountain Provincial Park, Manitoba
Go for: a one-of-a-kind musical performance
I define quiet as less an absence of sound and more an opportunity for the music of the natural world to be heard. In the deep forest of Manitoba’s Turtle Mountain Provincial Park, I found my concert hall of choice—72 square miles in proportion, seating occupancy untested. The instruments are already tuning at my arrival: a squirrel chitters in a tree, cutting his practice short as I set out along a hiking trail. My footfall sets the tempo for this wildwood symphony. A woodpecker knocks a percussion line on a hollow tree; a deer makes a brief, frenetic cacophony running into the brush. Something deftly plunks into a pond, sending up a heron whose wings sigh with a harp’s grace. Birdsong enters, two quivering soloists battling with delicate arpeggios. They crescendo to release, fly away, and everything draws down, down, down, to the smallest pianissimo. I stand entranced, waiting for the next movement. —J.R. Patterson
Valle del Silencio, Castilla y León, Spain
Go for: ancient paths made for reflection
In the Valle del Silencio (Valley of Silence), nestled deep in Spain’s Montes Aquilianos, time slowed to a whisper. The only sounds were the soft rustling of wind through ancient chestnut and oak trees, the distant murmur of a hidden stream, and the occasional call of a blackbird slicing through the stillness. Paths once walked by hermits centuries ago are unchanged, winding through mist-laden forests, old chapels, and villages seemingly untouched by time. I sat on a moss-covered rock, inhaling the crisp air scented with damp earth and wild thyme. The silence was profound—not empty, but full, like a presence watching over the valley. As the sun sank behind the peaks, golden light spilled over the rugged cliffs, deepening the shadows. In that hushed sanctuary, I realized that silence was not the absence of noise but a dialogue with the land itself—a conversation that lingered long after I left. —MarÃa Casbas
