The Wood Beyond The World Forum World Building: Environments.

I live in a forest so it was natural for me to create the haunted forest of Nalos for Servant of the Phrenet. The second book of The Quolltellan has sea people, inspired by my diving experiences and in my new book I am using my trip through the centre of Australia as inspiration for the desert world of Redd.

I was wondering what real places have been the inspirations for your fantasy worlds.

Gayna

Another thread I'm more than happy to jump all over.

The Ravellan League is Mediteranean, so of course it's not based on actual experience, but on reading and movies and extrapolation.  In a way the climate of the desert southwest of the US is a bit Mediterranean; coastal California is even moreso, and I've been there.

Vaaseli is really where my heart is, I suppose.  In a way the Alliance Chronicles came out of my longing to be back in the far north  where I grew up, when I was stuck in Louisiana.  Northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan were congenial to many Nordic immigrants because of their resemblance to their homeland, and I'm convinced I have racial memories of the far north of Finland, bequeathed to me by my Sami ancestors. I put Vaaseli together out of that experience and those memories, and my beloved Russian novels.

The deserts of Albrahar are inspired by my fascination with North Africa and the Middle East, pursued mostly through reading (the Black Stallion books, T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom), and some movies (Lawrence of Arabia, Hildago.) My life in New Mexico also has an influence, of course.

Xanthia is Asia.  I think I know what Southeast Asia is like from my exile in Louisiana -- there again, many immigrants (Viet Nam, Laos) settled along the Gulf Coast because it reminded them of home.  High deserts in both Asia and North America have much in common too.  I love writing my way into a landscape almost as much as I love physically hiking in mountains, or sitting beside the shores of an ocean or lake.  So a large part of my motivation for writing is actually a desire to travel and get out into an actual environment that's different from my everyday one. That includes urban environments, like the bazaars of port cities in southern Xanthia, or the majestic civic architecture of the Empire's capital city.

A side note that I think is important.

Geography and climate is incredibly important to cultural and political history,  Jared Diamond's book, Germs, Guns, and Steel, is a great resource for understanding that, and such understanding is a great aid to world-building.

Right now, for me, it is Ireland, Wales and parts of England. That is the nice thing about focusing on an island, I don't have to worry too much about climate and environments. That is one thing that I have some control over :-)