Category: Exploring Second Life

Purple Moon Ashes is a Full private region developed as a public space encompassing fantasy and magic, designed by Elguaje70 and DjDDB. It drew my attention after I noted it in the Destination Guide due to the use of items created by Elicio Ember, whom regulars to the pages will know, is both a close friend and a creator of elven-themed designs I never fail to find gorgeously attractive.

Surrounded by off-region hills, Purple Moon Ashes is a setting which becomes increasingly more attractive the longer one spends time within it – although I would note that the Shared Environment available at the time of my visit differed substantially from the EEP settings used in the Destination Guide entry for the region and – in my personal option – didn’t display the region at its best. This being the case, and after a little experimentation, I opted to use one of my personal “fallback” EEP settings for the photographs shown here.

It is a pleasure to invite you to explore this wonderful Purple Moon Ashes, a place where magic lives from the first moment you arrive; enjoy the dragon ride and the gondola ride. Come and discover how much more magic you can experience.

– Purple Moon Ashes About Land Description

The core of the region comprises a circular lake dominated by a central water / ruins feature which includes two large stone water serpents gushing water from their mouths. Three circular dance floors extend out over the lake from the surrounding largely circular, land enclosing the waters. Each of these platforms is placed roughly equidistantly around the circumference of the lake and each offers two points of access to the shallow waters, allowing visitors to walk to the central feature if they so wish.

Outside the lake, the land surrounding it offers multiple points of interest, all neatly linked by footpaths and flower trails.  The Landing Point sits on a plateau on the north-west quadrant of the region and is home to one of the teleport boards offering quick links to the major locations within the region (although I recommend using your pedal extremities to explore!) and the dragon ride mentioned in the About Land description. It also hides the region’s secrets below it – but I’ll leave it to you to discover the way into them 🙂 .

There are two ways down from the top of the plateau, each utilising elements created by Elicio. One runs gently down to the western side of the region, before a glass footpath directs explorers south and then east, where it is possible to climb the long finger of a rising promontory, which itself turns back to the north as it comes to the eastern side of the setting.

The second way down from the plateau is on its north side, passing by way of a large dance area build atop a smaller plateau of rock rising from the sea. Steps from here descend to join another glass path lain among the wildflowers as it travels eastwards to reach a large domed pavilion at it furthest extent, and beyond which the trail becomes one of grass and flowers.

It is this second route down from the plateau which offers one of the opportunities to take one of the region’s gondola tours (just to the left of the raise walkway from the last set if steps descending from the plateau). These tours are point-to-point, and so also allow visitors to reach specific destinations within the region. Boats are suitable for singles or couples, and sitting in a gondola will display a dialogue box of the destinations available from each embarkation point.

As each tour ends at the embarkation point for another, it is possible to use them in sequence to view the region, hopping from one boat to the next at each stop. It is via these gondolas that the narrow spit of land running along the north side of the region is best reached (“Forest Love”).

There is a good degree of repetition across the region in terms of statues and architecture – unicorns large and small, benches with statues, winged fairies spouting water, Elicio’s elven arches and glass walkways, stone gazebos with giant daisy-like places to sit within them, etc. These all work thematically and act as motifs for the region, offering opportunities for the imagination to invent suitable backstories for the setting.

Also to be found through the setting are multiple places to dance, including couples poseballs tucked away here and there as well as the more familiar dance systems hanging in the air over the more obvious dance locations. From the advertising I caught during my visit, I gather the region is also home to live music events. Details of these, I assume, are available through the local Group – but it appears this requires contacting either Elguaje70 or DjDDB in order to join.

With places to sit scattered throughout (including about the sail vessel and within the aforementioned caves), Purple Moon Ashes provides multiple reasons to not only explore, but also to relax and unwind within its borders. The local sounds are not intrusive, and the setting lends itself to a wide variety of EEP options.

In all, a visually engaging and charming visit.

SLurl Details

• Purple Moon Ashes (Purple Moon, rated Moderate)

Back in July I received an invitation from Dama (Damatjo Magic) to visit her Homestead region of Dutch Coast, and I’m embarrassed to say it’s taken a better part of a month for me to take her up on the offer.

The majority of the region is offered as a largely public, low-lying sandy island, dotted with birch, eucalyptus, oak and aspen, the upper reaches of the island (such as they are), carpeted with grass and flowers, providing spaces for the local sheep to graze.

I say the “majority” of the island is open to the public, because there is a private house on the south side, sitting on a large deck and exhibiting something of a Tuscan style to it.

This is one of two private residences in the region, the other sitting on a little island tucked into the south-west corner of the region and which is, I believe, Dama’s private home.

Outside of these, two other buildings are to be found on the main island, both of which appear to be open to the public. I’m not 100% sure on this, but I didn’t see any privacy notices associated with either.

The Landing Point sits towards the east side of the island, just above the eastern beach as it runs north-to-south, dotted with places to sit – including a beach shack and a small pier. Arcing around to the southern side of the island, the sands become separated from the sea by rocks in the run towards the private house mentioned above.

To the north, the beach passes around the larger of the two houses which appear open to the public. From here the sands carry on to the second beach house, where rocks once again separate the sand from the sea as the coast runs along the west side of the region and back towards the private house.

The rocks may look desolate, but they are home for a pod of seals that have chosen them as a place to bask in the sun.

Such is the design of the island that exploration is a simple matter of wandering on foot and appreciating the landscape and wildlife. There are plenty of places for sitting and passing the time for those who so wish, and there are a lot of little details to be appreciated throughout.

Easy on the eyes, with a sunset style of EEP settings and rounded-out by a subtle soundscape, Dutch Coast is an easy, gentle and calming visit. My thanks to Dama for the invitation!

SLurl Detail

• Dutch Coast (Nevaeh’s Rest, rated Moderate)

As I noted back in 2018, America’s historic Route 66 has been a popular theme for Second Life region designs over the years. In fact I made the observation about Motorheadz Café / Route66, designed by ROCKET (Rocket Biedermann) – see Another trip on Route 66 in Second Life.

Another popular Route 66 destination from around that time was Mother Road by Paul Cutter (Xtreme Paule) – see Get Your Pics on Route 66 In Second Life – and which today has grown to three regions in size (marking itself for a potential re-visit on my part).

I mention both of these settings, as I was immediately reminded of them on arriving at Cherishville – Summer, the 2025 summer iteration of Lam Erin’s Cherishville setting, which offers another take on the Route – and with its own twist.

The road runs east-to-west across a desert-like setting, complete with sandy hills forming a surround on three sides, and mesas breaking up the landscape. Some of the latter are places to give the impression the road winds through them as it leaves the region at either end.

Bordering the ribbon of tarmac is an assortment of locations that tend to typically inhabit these roadside scenes: petrol (gas) stations, diners, a motel, and so on. A second road exits the main thoroughfare at 90-degrres, providing access to a run-down drive-in theatre, passing a rag-tag circus-come-carnival along the way. How safe the latter is to visit is hard to say: two large African elephants and a tiger seem to have the run of the place.

A smaller sign at the junction of the two road hints at the setting’s little secret. Whilst the main road and its surroundings suggest somewhere deep in the desert, tucked behind the mesa running along the south-west edge of the landscape sits a coastal scene which – for me – totally transforms the design.

In contrast to the drabness of the main road and its tired, grimly gas stations and diners, this coastal scene is gaily vibrant in its colours. An open market is filled with fresh fruits; a street café and coffee house offers refreshments, cakes and pastries; pizzas can be enjoyed at the local pizzeria; brightly painted mobile vendors…

The beach might be slightly grassy in places, but there is enough clear sand to be enjoyed underfoot, the waters appear inviting enough for swimmers and surfers, while the entire scene has a sense of bean popular place to visit for those in the know.

I admit that I found the default EEP settings for the region to be a little murky – although they are well in keeping with the general sense of tiredness the main road and its surroundings exude. So for the pictures included here, I opted to make a few adjustment with cloud cover, brightness and ambient lighting.

There are a few oddities within the setting which, while small, are the kind that once seen, cannot be unseen – such as the stack of wooden chairs embedded in the chest of one of the elephants. However, whilst these do draw the eyes when seen up close, they do not interfere with the overall theme and look of the region as a whole.

I noted last time around that recent iterations of Cherishville have followed more-or-less the same broad design of a small town environment, viewing them through seasonal changes. This iteration therefore offers a significant change from the last few iterations, one that largely works and offers plenty to see and explore.

SLurl Details

• Cherishville – Summer (Tuscan Hills, rated Moderate)

It’s been just four months since my last visit to Reality Escape, the Full private region held by Tripty (triptychlysl). It’s a place I appreciated at the time (as noted in A Reality Escape in Second Life), both for its own beauty and for the way it carried forward themes and elements found in Tripty’s earlier build, Books, Coffee and Chairs, Oh My! which I’d visited in 2023. So when Tripty dropped an invite on me to come visit the latest iteration of the setting, I was only too happy to accept.

Tripty’s region builds are always somewhat personal to her, something made gently clear by a sign waiting to be found within the landscape: WARNING You Are About To Enter Someone Else’s Dream. However, it’s a dream that likely resonates with  anyone visiting the setting, allowing Reality Escape to live up to its name: a place we can all visit and experience a season of escape and indulge in a little dreaming of our own.

As with its previous iteration, this version of Reality Escape once again embraces three comforts I always appreciate: coffee, chairs and books; it also embraces some familiar motifs echoing Tripty’s past builds.

The Landing Point sits to the west of the setting, where wooden decks, complete and partially complete, all standing at the water’s edge with those that are complete offering outdoor seating from the Reality Escape coffee house. From here, the island offers a west-east orientation, with a smaller island to its eastern extent and two very small isles lying just off the coast, one of which lies between Reality Escape and Tripty’s private home and workspace within the adjoining region.

A number of routes of exploration are available from the Landing Point. For example, you can go through the café and the arch of rock beyond it to ravel along the middle of the main island; or you can take the path on the left side of the café as it offers access to paths on the island’s north side and along its coast. Or you can veer to the right of the coffee house and either head down to a small meadow and pond sitting on a little headland, or take another path rising up towards the island’s middle, or follow that path part way up the island and then turn aside to follow the trail and decks offering views and a walks along the southern coast.

What matters here is not the path you take, but the time you take in exploring; while the island might be comparatively small, it is rich in detail, large and small. Some of the obvious locations are sure to attract the eye and camera. One of these are the decks reaching out over the southern waters with their intervening chair bridges, and chair tower and arch – the latter offering a memory of both the setting’s previous iteration and that of Books, Coffee and Chairs, Oh My without imitating either.

Balancing this on the north side of the island is what I think is Reality Escape’s most engaging feature within this iteration. It is here that a slender finger extends out from the island proper, wetlands and shallows at its feet, its sides hanging with ivy and railings along its top marking the route of a path along its back.

Only this is no rocky promontory. Instead, it comprises a series of giant books either stacked up or standing upright or on their edges (allowing their spines to act as the walkway). Thy overlook more giant books floating on the water below, their pages open, together with the words Knowledge Is Power – a valuable admonition is this age where ignorance or falsity are increasingly valued over knowledge, experience and expertise.

With swings and sit points, this promontory is both imaginative and attractive. It is also braced by two more features. To the west of it, and looking like a great flat shelf of rock, lies another giant book its cover festooned with grass and more ivy hanging down from it. Sitting on it is a table set for a tea party and seemingly just missing a certain chap in a hat, a March hare, a dormouse and their guest. To its eastern side, wooden decks and steps descend the cliffs beyond to reach the wetlands whilst offering places to sit of their own.

The smaller details come in many forms and are all-encompassing. From the natural beauty of the setting with its burst of flowers and colour, to the presence of the cats and rabbits keeping an eye on things and the signage to be found scattered around, through the bees busily collecting pollen, these little touch add so much sense of life to the setting. I also liked the little touches of humour, such as the seagull cadging a ride rather than flying himself, or the stone Tibetan monks, one of whom is clutching a curious choice of book…

The little island to the east is neatly linked to the main isle by the hollowed-out trunk of a giant sequoia tree. This bridges the waters between the two, meaning there is no need to get wet feet when moving between them. Small it might be, but with its pond, garden and open-fronted pavilion (where fortune readings can be obtained), it has an attractiveness entirely of its own whilst also fully in keeping with the rest of the setting.

Throughout all of this are multiple places to sit and pass the time. These come in many forms, while most of the chairs in the region offer artistic statements (such as those mentioned above) more than presenting a place to sit. Which is not to say they cannot be sit upon; I enjoyed a latte whilst sitting amidst one chair tower!

As noted, this iteration of Reality Escape might appear small, but it packs a lot into it – more than I’ve described here. As such, I not only suggest you go see it for yourself, but that you allow time to explore all its trails and paths, nooks and crannies and allow the islands and their accompanying sound scape smooth away worries and concerns.

My thanks to Tripty for the invitation to re-visit!

SLurl Details

• Reality Escape, rated Adult

Designed by Miri (SilentChloe), Lost Place of Norbu is located within a Homestead region and offers  a sub-tropical setting which fully lives up to the Tibetan meaning of its name – “jewel”.

The setting is presented as two islands set within an azure sea and sitting just off what appears to be a rugged and wooded coastal headland. The larger of the two islands is partially surrounded by a sandy beach, the sands of which also reach across the intervening shallows to brush against the smaller island.

Defined within its About Land description as a lost place near Taiwan, this adult-rated setting offers a lot to appreciate in a relatively small area (a good portion of the region being given over to sandy shallows); including places to sit and pass the time, assorted wildlife, and a partially hidden location that might easily be missed in a rushed visit.

The Landing Point sits on the north side of the region within the aforementioned shallows and facing the larger of the two islands. In appearance, this island almost has the look of a volcanic uprising about it; a tall peak rising from the sands to sit as a high plateau dominated by a huge headless, one-armed statue which may have once represented Buddha.

Densely canopied with the kind of foliage one might reasonably expect to see somewhere close to Taiwan (itself noted for its sub-topical evergreen forest), the bulk of the this peak – which put me in mind of the sold basalt core of a long-dead volcano – is hidden from the Landing Point by this green canopy, causing the eyes to be drawn to the shoulder of rock extending into the sea on the island’s on its north side and the single-storey wooden building standing upon it.

Reached via a set of stone steps rising from the beach between two lines of bamboo trees, the build mixes places to sit, enjoy Japanese tea or engage in Adult activities, its cool interior.

Behind it, meanwhile, a path arcs around the eastern side of the main peak, travelling through a small Zen garden and under a Torii gate to reach a southern shelf of rock extending out over the southern waters. Another, stone Buddha, small than the one on the island’s peak and semi-clothed in moss, sits within a stream of water running outward across this rock shelf and fed by a waterfall at its inland end, and which drops into the waters below at its outer end. A simple wooden boardwalk crosses this stream, allowing visitors to follow the path onwards, and so circumnavigate the island’s peak and return down the stone steps back to the beach.

As the sands of the beach do not fully encircle the island, it is impossible to use them as a similar means of circumnavigation, but follow them west and then around to the south from the landing point, and you’ll find yourself passing under the shelf of rock where “little Buddha” sits, then onwards to the island’s hidden gem.

Guarded by a mix of tall pagoda-like lamps and a Torii gate, all of which stand ankle-deep in lilies and other greenery happy to grow in the shallows, together with hovering water lily lanterns, sits the Shibari House.

Almost entirely hidden from view from above thanks to the rain forest canopy, the name of this place might sound like it is a centre for Adult activities. However, whilst such activities are possible, unless in actual use during a visit, they and cleverly hidden away, allowing the place to apparently take its name from the artwork mounted on the walls of the open-air rotunda.

Across the sandy shallows and tucked into the south-west corner of the region, the smaller of the two islands is equally as rugged as the larger and well canopied by sub-tropical foliage. A little harder to get around, it offers numerous places both beach-side and up among the rocks of s backbone to sit and pass the time, including an onsen watched over by egrets and with its outer ring of water patrolled by large koi carp.

If the onsen is not to your liking, then there is a waterside gazebo where it is possible to keep an eye on the location’s three elephants. I’m not sure how they found their way here, but they appear to be enjoying wading around in the warm waters, whilst colourful birds circle overhead. Some of the latter appear to appreciate the presence of a Japanese dragon fountain as it dribbles water from a rocky outcrop part-way up the side of the island. It sits close to another little retreat overlooking the Onsen, but I confess I had to resort sitting on the couch within it in order to reach , as I couldn’t find a path up to it.

It is in several of the couches, chairs and sit points in general that the setting’s more adult nature can be found, rather than in anything overtly displayed; thus, there is nothing within Norbu that might offend the sensitive when visiting. Rather, this is a peaceful setting which genuinely offers a lot to see, appreciate and to photograph.

Finished with a (perhaps too) subtle soundscape and presented within an appropriate EEP setting, Norbu offers an engaging fusion of ideas: a sub-tropical island off the coast of Taiwan but with a strong Japanese influence, wandering elephants, and even a little puffin enjoying a little bit of a tropical vacation. As such, it is well-worth the time taken to visit it.

SLurl Details

• Lost Place of Norbu (Ruby Rigid, rated Adult)

Sam Rougefeu, curator of the destinations SL blog, pointed me toward Raven’s Bay, a homestead region held and designed by Lilly Blackwood. Open to the public, it’s and engaging location with a hint of alchemy about it.

An island of mystery and magic. Explore the trails, meet friends at the café, dance on the beach, explore the Paranormal Academy!

– Raven’s Bay About Land

Caught in the onset of autumn, Raven’s Bay is another of those settings that bucks the trend of aligning its design with the northern hemisphere seasons; the golds and oranges present in some of the foliage is matched by the rusty folds of hills and ridges across part of the landscape to create what is largely a tranquil setting.

The Landing Point sits just offshore within a large bay cutting into the landscape from the west, watched over by a tall lighthouse raised on the bay’s northern headland. A short walk along the boardwalk from the landing point sits the squat form of an old castle.

This home to the Raven’s Bay Apothecary and Paranormal Academy, the latter of which appears to offer refreshments – but perhaps these should be treated with caution, given the way the biscuits are decorated and the labelling on the tea pot!

To reach the castle, visitors must cross a ribbon of single-track road. This connects to two further hoops of road as they loop around the northern and southern side of the region, with latter connecting to a spur of track running up to the sandy headland of the bay’s southern side.

These roads make it easy to circumnavigate the setting using either one of the bikes or Segway-style personal transports available from the rezzers outside of the Raven’s Bay Apothecary. For those of a more magical disposition, broomsticks are available for transport as well (not you will be asked to allow the AV Sitter Experience for seamless use of the broomstick).

Following the roads will reveal both the island beauty and its points of interest. The latter include the aforementioned beach, which runs part-way along the region’s southern coast; the statues places along the roadside at various points; the local café (which likely offer more palatable beverages and treats than the arsenic tea and poison biscuits offered elsewhere 🙂 ).

There are also two tree-lined footpaths awaiting discovery. The first is fairly easy to find, extending as it does from the far side of the tunnel running through the castle and visible from the Land Point. It leads to a smaller bay on the east, and the gazebo built out over it. The second runs to one side of the castle (and helpfully signposted “Nowhere”! 🙂 ). It leads to an old chapel and gazebo, the former of which looks like godly worship is no longer its primary aim.

For those who are seeking something spiritual, a place to stop might be at the round ruin on the north side of the region, where Buddha awaits and cushions are set-out for meditation – or for simply passing the time.

With places to sit throughout, together with dancing, the hint of a coastal swamp, Raven’s Bay has a lot to offer visitors and photographers, and is finished with an appropriate sky setting and environment, as well as being rich enriched with a natural soundscape.

In all, a very worthwhile place to visit.

SLurl Details

• Raven’s Bay (Serena Hamilton Isle, rated Moderate)