My earliest days tripping were in the suburb where I grew up. My friends and I would walk the sidestreets on LSD, mushrooms, or cannabis and analyze the architectural designs of our neighbors.

However, I was always uncomfortable in the suburbs. I often felt as if we were being watched from the windows of suspicious homeowners, who were just waiting for "the riff raff" to walk by for them to have an excuse to call the authorities. Of course this never happened as we were white, dressed like suburban teens, and rarely made an actual scene, but I could never shake my discomfort with the area.

I also could often sense unhappiness and a general lack of fulfillment among the homes and their inhabitants. There were many unhappy marriages among other modern, upper middle class traumas in a town that appeared somewhat ritzy and well put together to outsiders. I have since relocated to an urban setting where I am much happier. I will likely never live in a densely packed or highly populated urban center, as I enjoy living in small cities that offer just enough intellectual stimulation paired with peace and quiet when I need it.

For tripping, however, I still prefer a natural setting with quick access to my home in the city. This can be a tough combination to find, but it exists in well-designed cities. Tripping has greatly influenced the way I see cities and spaces, and it has led me to have an affection for the field of urban planning. So I am wondering:

-Has tripping influenced the way you see and understand cities?
-What kinds of settings (rural, suburban, urban, exurban) do you enjoy tripping in and why?
-Did you move settings in your lifetime due to tripping?

I'm sort've on the fence about cities. I see them as something that ended up being a natural consequence of civilizations/human beings propensity to expand [for better or for worse, or somewhere in-between], and the direction they've taken can seem to vary depending on the people/geography and the history of the area. I don't know a whole lot about architecture or the construction of cities, so I can't say anything on this really [I'm sure the bottom-dollar $$ fits into all this majorly so]. Are they in the long term detrimental? Is there good that comes from them? I'm sure I could sit here all day and throw things out there onto both sides, so idk, for me to feel one way or another on it ..idk, I'm pretty impartial to it tbh. Sorry, not the most satisfactory answer , but I'm not too sure on what to say.




I have lived all my life in a fairly rural area, lots of long-standing farm based families around here - cattle, grains, angus cattle, chickens, dairy cows, field corn, sweet corn, soy beans, there's probably a few others I'm forgetting. Surrounded mostly by wooded area [deciduous, coniferous] and farm-field [few hundred acres or so]. Most of my childhood was spent walking these fields and wooded areas, used to go fishing alot at the near by ponds when I was younger, also in walking distance is a good sized lake with a nice variety of fish population [and that lake's real close to a nearby reservoir that I used to ride my bike to and go hike and fish also].

There's so many memories that I have throughout these areas, it makes it very hard for me to just up and leave and start anew somewhere else. The experiences that I've had with psychs over the years in these areas have been some of, if not, the most comfortable places I've journey'd, it makes such a difference for me. Also being on a couple acre piece of land I've spent alot of time tripping uninterrupted [aside from the occasional deer or other animal] which I think's been invaluable in how I experience these things. Spent endless nights around the fire and into the morning tripping, so many great memories and life changing experiences. Makes all the difference when you're completely comfortable in the sapce you're tripping in and to know the extreme unlikelihood of interruption by anyone, I highly doubt that I'd do these things any other way.

Also spent many late night treks in the woods nearby, setting up a small solo camp, and eating whatever I had planned [mushrooms, mescaline, lsd], have done this a few handfuls of times, a couple of those times being in winter, probably a good mile off-trail hike in to set up. I've had some very powerful experiences out there alone.

Yeah, I was in similar scenarios a few times when I was younger and tripped with a few friends out in their neighborhood [suburbs] and yeah similar thoughts ran through my head at the time. I was much younger and definitely hadn't had much experience under me at that point. Those occasional bits of unfounded paranoia

I cut my tripping teeth in a small UK city with an abundance of mediaeval and Victorian architecture and ready access to nature and countryside. It was pretty good but, yeah, funny how that paranoia can kick in.

The more modern suburbs are probably less conducive. It did start to go pear-shaped once I moved to a more modern house. That also coincided with ketamine arriving, however, and a bunch of other stuff so it's difficult to pin it just to the architecture.

Given my present location, there may well be architectural grounds to my present dearth of tripping action, besides the increased responsibilities that come with time. That and the landscape is somewhat uninspiring as well. Definite set and setting factors.

Wow Tatt, that sounds beautiful! The presence of other people and artificial objects definitely changes the nature of trips, and at least in my experience, has made them harsher or more critical of human existence. My most comfortable and deepest trips have been in more natural areas where I did not have to worry about bumping into too many people. It sounds like you have a great setup for those kinds of uninterrupted trips.

My trouble is that I enjoy city life when I am not tripping, as I like walking through downtown areas, being part of certain organizations, going to lectures, and having access to nice restaurants. That is why I mentioned that I like cities that are still a bit dense but close to more natural or secluded areas for easier and deeper tripping. Feeling close to nature and to human civilization both have their advantages.



I know what you mean; it's funny how so many of these conversations circle back to set and setting. We hear about them so much that it almost sounds cliche, but they always seem to end up being the most influential factors on trips!

I'm a huge fan of well done cities with ample green space. As an urban designer this is what I try to do. Most cities in the USA are done highly politically based, and they ignore the suggestions of professionals like myself. Tripping has certainty enhanced how i view how to design an urban space. I think of things beyond humans for that.

I could go on and on about this would take me days to write it all. I could post some of my work later.

Some of my best experiences tripping have been at my University which is a very urban campus but has a lot of woods and greenspace in it. Has a great balance of art work, sculptures interesting architecture, murals, awesome plants... I dunno if like tripping there or at my 4 acer jungle more. Both are equally awesome to me.

Theres a great city to the south of me Ive been wanting to trip in. Almost every building has a trippy mural on it, the Dali Museum is there, ethnobotanical tea lounges (yes ethnobotanical tea lounges) some great parks and botanical gardens all within a short of walk of everything.