Lots of people who travel like to center their excursions around a particular theme. For example, you can go on a literary excursion and revisit the paths traveled from the heroes of your favorite novels. Some sports fans opt to tailor their trips around their love of the game: here’s a cool post about a guy who traveled with a buddy and hit every single MLB ballpark. Turns out these are great ways to see the country and acquaint yourself with your countrymen and fellow fans/enthusiasts. And it doesn’t just have to be domestic either! You can even plan a mythology tour and see some of the sites that have been embedded in the human conscious since antiquity.

These are all awesome ideas for trips, but what about something more abstract? Always feel free to mix and match and do your own thing, but here’s a cool starting point: colors. The idea came from a cool post on Mashable that featured photos from what are literally some of the world’s most colorful cities. The title of the piece references the actual need for #nofilter, and for good reason. These locales are a testament to the beauty of human alteration and expression in our everyday lives. It’s a cool way to see humans make their homes truly their own. Featured are places like Burano, a small Venetian island that features vibrantly painted homes, said to serve as a beacon for returning fishermen.

Other colors have celestial meanings. The Moroccan town of Chefchaouen has a blue hue, said to symbolize heaven— although blue does act as a mosquito repellent (perhaps heaven is free of mosquitos, too!). Similarly, the magnificent cathedrals of Moscow are meant to evoke a heavenly scene.

brown grassy hills

The “Chocolate Hills” of the Philippines

A “color run” needn’t be exclusively urban. You can also visit the natural landscapes that have a bit of “pop”. For starters, there’s the Arizona’s Painted Desert, in which the visibly stratified layers of sedimentary rocks appear as the streaks of a painter’s brush. Or, if you’re looking to escape the US, explore the Philippines’ Chocolate hills, which is really green grass that has turned to a dusky brown.

Color is all around us, and we don’t need a filter to bring out the best of it.