I’m a little late to the party with this weeks blog meme, but even without a challenge I’ll always jump on the chance to share pretty shots.  Strawberry Singh‘s blog challenge for this week is to share some of our favorite places in SL, so I began looking through my landmarks and thinking about the places I like to visit. This quickly turned into me being nostalgic, and a little sad when I tried to look up a landmark on the map and found that it was no longer on the grid. Like many people I was in love with all of the sims that AM Radio designed, and I’m delighted to know that The Far Away is still on the grid, I will definitely be revisiting it.

Here are the instructions if you’d like to join in:

Meme Instructions: Share 1 to 5 of your favorite places on the grid. I feel like exploring and discovering new places. Share places you think everyone should visit and also tell us why they are your favorites. Don’t forget to leave a link to your post in the comments (on the original post here)!

I was tempted to dig into my old images and find some of my favorites, but instead (with one exception) I thought I’d take a fresh look at some of the places I’ve always enjoyed  I typically edit pics because I like to play with color or add filters,  but I left all of these untouched except for cropping (again, with one exception) just to see how things would turn out using only windlight settings. These are in no particular order.

 

Calas Galadhon

Of course everyone knows about these sims, but I have to mention them anyway. I love all of Calas Galadhon.  I love to wander around, and look for interesting camera angles, and just sit sometimes and imagine that I’m really in this lovely setting. This pic was in Dimril Dale, and I think (it’s a couple years old so I’m not totally sure) that I used the viewer depth of field and the only extra processing was the vignetting (and probably cropping.)  This is one of my favorite images out of the SL pics I’ve taken over the years.  I am really looking forward to seeing the sims open back up in September, this is one of the places that the hub and I have had a lot of fun exploring.

Paris 1900

I may never see the real Paris, but I can always wander around here. You can ride around in antique cars, tour via the streetcar, take a strolling tour with your sweetie, or parachute off the Eiffel Tower. That last part is particularly fun 😀

 

Chakryn Forest

The first sim that I thought of when I was considering favorite places was Chakryn, I hadn’t visited it in quite a while and I was delighted to see that it’s still out there. When I look back at my SL photos I find a lot were taken here, so this is one of those extremely nostalgic places.  I love the forest and the hills, and the little sprites that flit through the air, and the art scattered around. It was fun wandering around again, and finding it is still the peaceful, lovely place I remember.

 

Gaia Rising

Gaia Rising is a small grouping of sims with a lovely nature feel, with lots of little places to explore. I discovered it fairly early on when I was searching for pagan themed communities, and it has always been one of my go-to places if I just want to take a nature shot, because there are so many little areas that are quite pretty. I believe the community is pretty active, I followed their group a couple years ago but when I went on SL hiatus I withdrew from everything, and I’m only starting to rejoin groups now.  Hopefully I’ll work up the courage to check out some  of their events. In the meantime I definitely like to visit to soak up the nature.

 

Kannonji Zen Retreat

Kannonji is a Buddhist community, and offers several meditation sessions daily, talks by RL Buddhist teachers, and for many who may not have a local community it is a way to meet with like minded people and share their practice. There are also a lot of lovely little nature areas, if you aren’t interested in meditation you can wander the forest, sit quietly by a waterfall, or tour the sim via balloon or canoe. Recently Kannonji has become the new home for Stargazer Cafe, a live music venue, and there is also live music on Friday nights by the campfire.  I have to admit I’ll always be biased here, the current owners, as well as the original owner, are all good friends of ours, and it’s where we make our home. We’ve watched the community grow from rented land on a quarter of a homestead to a full sim, and we’ve had a hand in some of the landscaping, so this is always going to be my favorite place. 🙂

 

And so that’s five.  I can think of a few more off the top of my head,  some of which I want to check to see if they’re still around. I sense some additional exploration in my future. And that is one of the absolute best parts of Second Life!