Singapore hides itself in the spaces in between. Between columns, between shadows, between a window and its reflection. It lives in the passages where people move through one another’s lives without stopping. Someone is on their way in, someone is on their way out. Someone disappears around a corner before their face ever becomes clear.

The city seems built on repetition. Windows upon windows. Floors upon floors. Patterns that continue until the eye eventually stops counting. Yet amid all the precision, small disruptions appear – a figure standing in a doorway, a movement in the distance, a moment of disorder within everything so carefully arranged.

Perhaps that is how you come to know a city. Not through its tallest buildings or its most famous landmarks, but by standing still long enough to watch the small stories unfold in the spaces in between.

JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA – The road through the desert cuts across a landscape that at first glance can seem almost entirely uninhabited. Sand, rock, and dry vegetation stretch across vast distances, while the heat makes the air above the asphalt shimmer. Gradually, the landscape begins to reveal its most distinctive feature: the unusual trees with their branching shapes that gave Joshua Tree National Park its name.

The national park lies in Southern California, where the Mojave and Colorado deserts meet. The area is known for its unique geological formations and harsh climate. Massive granite boulders appear stacked upon one another as if placed there at random. In reality, they are the result of millions of years of geological processes, as wind, changing temperatures, and erosion have gradually shaped the landscape.

The Joshua tree itself – which actually belongs to the yucca family – has become the symbol of the park. The name was given by Mormon settlers in the 19th century, who believed the trees’ outstretched branches resembled the biblical Joshua with his hands raised toward the sky. Today, these trees remain one of the most recognisable features of the region.

Yet the character of the park is not defined by its vegetation or geology alone. It is also shaped by the absence of many things that normally surround modern life. The sounds of traffic, city life, and technology quickly disappear into the vast openness of the landscape. What remains are the wind, the light, and the shifting shadows moving across stone and sand.

During the day, temperatures can be extreme and conditions demanding. Nature here has adapted to an environment where water is a scarce resource. Plants and animals survive under conditions that require remarkable resilience and endurance.

As the sun begins to set, the landscape changes character. Colours along the horizon shift from bright yellows and oranges to deeper shades of red and purple. After darkness falls, the sky above Joshua Tree becomes one of the area’s defining features. The absence of significant light pollution makes the national park one of the places in the United States where the night sky appears with exceptional clarity.

In Joshua Tree, the silence is every bit as remarkable as the landscape itself.

East of Southern California, far from crowded highways and the polished surfaces of its major cities, lies a landscape that feels disconnected from the California many people imagine. There are no palm-lined boulevards here, no beaches filled with surfers. Instead, you encounter abandoned buildings, improvised communities, and colours painted directly onto the dust and sand of the desert.

Three places sit relatively close to one another: Bombay Beach, Salvation Mountain, and Slab City. Individually, they appear as unusual destinations. Together, they create a portrait of a landscape where decay, creativity, and human persistence exist side by side.

Bombay Beach sits along the shores of the Salton Sea, California’s largest lake. The area was originally developed as a holiday destination during the 1950s and 1960s. Expectations were high – tourism, marinas, and economic growth were meant to follow. But the story took a different turn. Rising salinity and environmental challenges changed the future of the region, and many of its buildings were left behind.

Today, the traces remain. Abandoned homes, rusting structures, and art installations have become part of the landscape. Some places feel like the remnants of a vanished dream of prosperity; others resemble deliberate attempts to create new life from what was left behind.

A few kilometres away, a sudden burst of colour interrupts the uniform desert landscape. Salvation Mountain rises like a man-made hill covered in paint, biblical messages, and vivid shapes. The work was created over several decades by Leonard Knight, who began building it in the 1980s.

From a distance, the mountain seems almost unreal. Amid dust, heat, and dry earth, a landscape of blues, reds, yellows, and greens stands as a visible expression of personal conviction. It breaks with the harshness of its surroundings and introduces an element of hope and persistence.

Behind Salvation Mountain lies Slab City.

The area was built on the remains of a former military base, where only the large concrete foundations – the so-called “slabs” – were left after the buildings were removed. Over time, the site became an unofficial gathering place for people seeking an alternative way of life.

There is no traditional city plan here, no central streets, and no clear boundaries between private and public space. Homes have been created from trailers, wood, metal, and reclaimed materials. Artworks and handmade signs are scattered throughout the landscape.

For some, the place represents freedom from rules and fixed structures. For others, it appears as a symbol of social marginalisation or a society without clear frameworks.

Bombay Beach, Salvation Mountain, and Slab City share more than geography. They share a particular atmosphere. These are places that seem to exist outside the familiar stories of success and progress. They feel raw, unfinished, and at times contradictory.

Perhaps that is exactly why they capture my attention.

I travel the world is to chase the extraordinary. I set out in search of beauty in distant places, drawn by the promise of something different, something more vivid than the familiar. I follow light across continents, stand before vast landscapes, and let myself be shaped by the scale of things I have yet to understand. And then, almost without noticing, I return with something quieter: the sense that what I was looking for has, in some form, been there all along.

Distance sharpens perception. What once felt ordinary begins to loosen its edges when seen from afar, as though memory itself adjusts the light. The fields, the coastline, the low horizon – things that rarely asked for my attention – begin to take on a different weight. Not because they have changed, but because I have. Travel does not only show me the world; it alters the way the world shows itself to me.

After encountering the vastness of the world, a place like Denmark can seem understated. The landscape speaks in a quieter register, with a scale that invites attention rather than demands it. In its shifting light, the persistent wind, and the steady rhythm of the sea, a kind of beauty emerges that asks only for presence. It lives in small variations: the color of the sky just before evening, the sound of grass moving in long waves, the way the horizon hovers in gentle uncertainty.

It is a beauty that favors subtlety. It unfolds gradually and rewards those who linger with it. Many pass through it quickly, while others learn to attune themselves to its rhythm. Over time, the eye begins to settle into these details, and the landscape opens in quiet ways.

In that sense, traveling outward becomes a way of returning. A return to a place, and to a way of seeing. The long distances, the unfamiliar streets, the fleeting encounters – they gather quietly within me and begin to shift my attention. What once seemed too close to notice comes back into view, revealed through a deeper awareness.

And so the journey folds in on itself. The far away and the near begin to echo one another. The extraordinary softens into presence, and the ordinary deepens in meaning. I return with a quieter clarity – one that allows me to stand where I have always stood, and see, perhaps for the first time, what has been there all along.

The forest rises like a living cathedral. Tall spruces draw the eye upward, while light filters through the branches in a quiet, almost sacred way. The ground, softened by a thick layer of moss, invites you to slow down. Lakes lie still in the landscape like clear, watchful eyes, their surfaces reflecting the pale blue of the spring sky.

Stepping into this place feels like entering a gentle, unfolding story. Your breath begins to match the rhythm of the wind moving through the trees, and your heartbeat echoes the steady pulse of the natural world. A sense of connection emerges – a quiet understanding that life unfolds through relationships, through cycles, through repetition.

The Swedish landscape speaks softly. Its calm seeps into the body and gradually reshapes the mind. Here, a space opens – one where I meet myself through something larger than me.

Images tell stories in a way that breaks with the logic of language. They hold a single moment, yet within that moment multiple layers of time unfold at once – something has already happened, something is still in motion, and something is about to emerge. The narrative exists as a potential rather than a fixed structure.

An image like the one above sets a scene with recognizable elements, but without pointing in a single direction. It feels like a fragment of a larger whole, where meaning only takes shape in the encounter with the viewer. In this way, storytelling becomes an active process – something that is created rather than delivered.

Instead of a linear narrative, a more open form of storytelling appears. Mood, light, and space generate a subtle tension that guides interpretation. The image reveals something, while at the same time holding something back – and it is precisely within this tension that the story comes alive.

Day 4. Final impressions

The sun had scorched my neck. I soaked a small towel in cold water and wrapped it around my neck for relief. My legs and ankles were covered in bites from mosquitoes and sandflies, and blisters had spread across my size-46 feet, making it difficult to walk. Despite it all, I woke with a smile.

Day 3. A World-Class Detour

When you don’t plan too much and allow experiences to unfold on a whim, they often feel more genuine. Perhaps because there are no expectations — you simply take things as they come. One such detour on the third day turned out to be truly unforgettable.

Day 2: Ancient forest, tides, and untouched beaches

One of the most beautiful places I have ever visited is Bark Bay in Abel Tasman National Park. The bay unfolds with soft, golden sand, crystal-clear turquoise water, and a perfect semicircle of forest-covered hills. The contrast between the dense, green ancient forest and the vivid colours of the sea is both calming and breathtaking — especially in the early morning light or late in the day.

Day 1. Arrival. An Impossible Tent and Persistent Birds

Thirty-five years ago, I caught only a fleeting glimpse of Abel Tasman National Park. Now I return to experience the landscape that has lingered in my memory since my first youthful encounter with New Zealand.