What are your "happy" and/or "dream" places?

[Like Ra]

Two questions:

- Have you ever been to some place/location/city/middle of nowhere/whatever where you felt absolutely happy? Not because of some kind of an event, or a good company, but just because of this place?

- Are there any places you dream to be at/in/on? Somewhere you always want to visit, but so far haven't been to?

[Like Ra]

I begin. For many years the "happy" place was the Grossglockner area in the Austrian Alps. That feeling of an absolute freedom mixed with wind, breathtaking landscape, the smell of saxifragas and edelweisses, green translucent serpentines, sparkly fuchsites, marmots, clear springs and waterfalls, small very cold lakes... Whoooh.... Still getting shivers....

Then another place almost replaced (they "coexist") the Alps - Canary islands, which turned to be a highly concentrated essense happiness. You can walk, you can sit in one place, you can look around, you can look under your feet, you can take a magnifying glass and go "deeper", you can close you eyes and just feel/smell the air, and hear either the wind and rattling pebbles, or the sound of someones steps on lapilli, or rustle of the grass. You can watch how liquid clouds flow into the valleys from above those clouds, you can stand in the middle of the abandoned runway, walk in the desert or long the deserted beach, as if you are walking on one place, you can climb to ancient sacred places and feel the presence of ... something ... I can go on and on .... We've been to all inhabited islands, and all of them are different and irreplaceable.

As for the "dream place" - it would be Kailash... And the Kora around it.

[ltxrob]

generally im happiest when at the top of a mountain having got there with my mountain bike.
Lake district in NW England is probably where id want the mountain to be!

[essanym]

I've always wanted to visit Iceland and the fjords in Scandinavia.

[Tinker D]

Deep forests for me.
Nice and quiet.
Second best ?
High mountains with trees.
Seeing the stars at nite always puts me to ease.

[Culmor]

The Wild Woods. Welsh temperate cloud forests dripping with mosses, ferns and lichens.  Failing that, Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor.

   

[Like Ra]

I thought I was a forest guy, but I slowly turned into more rocks, sand, some grass, succulents, and rare trees. And I need to see the horizon and non-flat landscape (sorry NL).

[Culmor]

Three hour ago the BBC published an article asking walkers to avoid walking in Wistman's Wood.

Dartmoor: Wistman's Wood visitors asked to stay out to protect woodland - BBC News

A bizarre coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing.

[Like Ra]

The Wild Woods. Welsh temperate cloud forests dripping with mosses, ferns and lichens.  Failing that, Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor.

   

Fantastic!

That reminds me this enchanted forest: https://www.google.com/maps/dir//Sch%C3%...153377!3e0

It's not THAT spectacular moss-wise, but the spectacular Obersee surrounded by mountains (and a waterfall in the background) compensates a bit. You can get there only by electric boats (not that it reduces the amount of people too much). Also one of my favourite places.

[BoundWolf]

For me, it wasn't a specific location, per se, but it was a natural phenomenon.
I'm not one to get emotional.  Some places are neat (like standing on a mountaintop in the Rockies), but not really life-changing for me.  However, the 2017 solar eclipse - that did it for me.  That was the first time I felt truly awestruck by something.  It put me in a really weird, happy, "oh wow" headspace that I've never felt before or since.