Someone recently asked me what my ideal holiday destination is.
On a general level, the answer is almost certainly ‘Anywhere I can collect colours’, whether it’s colourful images (especially urban ones – street art and unusual or striking buildings) or colourful objects such as fabric or souvenirs (I particularly cherish a kitsch mug I bought in Miami).
Porto was pretty, New York always delivers (as you can see from this picture of a gargantuan mural wall on the side of a Manhattan building) and fortunately my home city of London (including Notting Hill’s iconic buildings and this street in west London that looks pastel-pretty come rain or shine).
But still there are others waiting to be discovered – and photographed. I wrote about some of these destinations for a travel piece in the Mail On Sunday in 2019. Here are a few of them, plus some others on my list:
Five colourful holiday destinations
- Santa Caterina Palopo in Guatemala to see the community painting project transforming the town with colour and pattern.
- Burano Island in Italy to drink in the clashing colours painted on the buildings. Pictures I’ve seen look unreal so I’d love to see the colour for myself.
- Gafanha da Encarnação in Portugal. Beach huts are big in the UK but the striped ‘haystacks’ at this beach take this to a whole other level.
- Portmeirion in Wales. Closer to home (and, indeed, situated in my motherland), I’ve never been to this Italiate-style village, which is a favourite of creative, artist and colour visionary Philippa Stanton (read about more about Philippa’s colour world).
- Bristol in the UK. I have been promising myself a trip here, ever since reading a blog post by @thirdeyetraveller Sophie Pearce, which lists exactly which streets you need go to to find full-on colour.
There are many more I could list but this is just for starters.
I’d love to know what colourful holiday destinations are on your list and why – drop me a line.
Martha, The Colour File x
