As the evening light show finished splashing colours on the KL Tower again, I realised I’d been standing at the window of our apartment, transfixed, for a good fifteen minutes. The stranger part was that my nine-year-old had been doing the same.
In fact, during our week in Kuala Lumpur, we had both spent an inordinate amount of time simply staring out the window of our apartment.
We were on the eighteenth floor and had a view towards the KL Tower, the rainforest that surrounds it, and a large but motley collection of skyscrapers. There was always something going on, but it wasn’t necessarily the changing lights on the tower or the workers coming out for smoko on office building balconies that caught my attention – as much as I love spying on what everyone’s doing – it was really just the feeling that I could see for miles and the view was, well, big.
What’s all this about big views?
Of course, this is not the first time I’ve enjoyed staring out a window on my travels. Looking across the incredible Icelandic landscape from the window of my cabin at the foot of Mt Kirkjufell kept me occupied well into the (still very light) early hours of a midsummer morning; the view to Nijo Castle from our Airbnb in Kyoto obsessed me, and I could barely believe that it was true – years later, it’s still the background wallpaper on my smartphone. I’ve also spent literally days thrilling at the various views of Siberia and beyond outside my cabin window along the Trans-Siberian railway; even, more recently, my view across the pool and the sea in Cairns from my room in the Riley Hotel had me completely captivated.
It turns out I’m not alone in this preoccupation with vast views. Part of what I like about a big view is the feeling that staring out at it expands my mind somehow, and reading Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel for the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club introduced me to a pearl of wisdom that seemed to explain this:
There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views.
I had many a “large thought” while staring out of my Kuala Lumpur apartment window, and casting my mind back to some of the most inspiring, creative moments on my travels, I often find travel inspires new thoughts and ideas, but never more so than when I have a view to indulge.
Big views and big thoughts
Ever make big or life-changing decisions when you travel? I actually feel like I’m only capable of determining new life paths and significant choices when I’m travelling; they don’t come easily to me when I’m at home in the hustle of the routine of work and school. Spending a week at that Kuala Lumpur window during January was perfect timing in this respect: it’s the time of year when I’m always plotting and planning how I will make life better than ever, what work I’ll try to take on, where we might travel, how I might be healthier and happier and all of that.
But it’s not just a spot of goal planning or new year resolutions that have come to mind when I’m travelling and get to stare out the window for a while. That cabin in Iceland: quite honestly, I made my most significant life decision that very night, the vast view in front of me really giving me the freedom to have bigger thoughts, and, well, let’s just say I became a single parent not long after. The incredible Kyoto view to Nijo Castle: another turning point a couple of years post-Iceland, when I was financially on my feet again and could make more heartfelt decisions about the kind of work I would pursue, now that I wasn’t simply scrabbling to survive; being back in Japan and showing my son my love for it helped me get back on track with work in the travel field, remembering again how important it is for me.
Are views of nature the best views?
Ever curious, I have continued to wonder exactly why these views inspire such contemplation, beyond Alain de Botton’s fitting but relatively simplistic idea of large thoughts needing large views. Science tells me that it actually dates back to prehistoric times: zoologist GH Orians talks of “Savannah Theory” which basically means that for evolutionary reasons – the fact that we wanted to see the sabre-toothed tiger coming – humans are wired to prefer savannah-like environments with big views. Makes sense, right?
It’s interesting to me to realise that a big view doesn’t have to be savannah-like – the urban jungle of Kuala Lumpur had a similar effect on me as a natural landscape does – but if I had to rate the views I’ve experienced over the years, the ones gazing out to mountains, lakes and oceans would come out on top.
Research says plenty about how our mood, happiness and general sense of wellbeing increases when we’re looking at nature. A study by British and American academics that was published in Nature last year decided that as we’d expect: happiness is greater in “more scenic locations”. Another study by the same academics reported that “inhabitants of more scenic environments report better health”, too – and I feel sure that corresponds to travellers who stay in scenic environments, too, probably even more so, because of the novelty factor.
So, should you seek out places to stay with amazing views?
Staring out over Kuala Lumpur made me remember one of the main reasons I’d booked this week away. Travel is a brain reset for me. It’s like switching off an annoying device that’s not functioning as it should, turning it on again and finding it all fixed. Travelling, being away from routine, and having time to ponder life is like hitting that reset button.
Both my own experience and the research show that the vast scenic views we find on our travels can help this thinking and resetting happen. It’s something all travellers probably know intuitively, but now it’s something I’m more aware of, I want to be more proactive with my accommodation choices in the future. Especially if I have a big life decision to make!
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