exotic settings
Faraway story backdrops
Exotic settings are locations that feel foreign, unfamiliar, or romantically distant from the reader's or viewer's everyday world.
The term appears most often in travel writing, fiction, and film, suggesting places with distinctive customs, landscapes, or atmospheres: The novel unfolds against exotic settings in Morocco and Bali.
What counts as exotic depends entirely on perspective—a Parisian café is exotic to someone from rural Kansas, and vice versa.
- African savannaTropical grassland ecosystem
- Amazon basinLargest drainage area globally
- ancient templesOld religious worship buildings
- temple bellsRinging instruments at worship sites
- coral reefCalcium carbonate marine ecosystem
tribal rituals · desert oasis · monsoon season · indigenous art · remote villages · treasure hunts · rainforest · bamboo forests · enchanted forests · ceremonial attire · Zanzibar · floating markets · night markets · sacred festivals · Angkor Wat · jungle · lost civilizations · Mediterranean coast
- adventureadventure, quest, quests, exploration, explorers
- RomanticismWilliam Blake, the sublime, J.M.W. Turner, Eugene Delacroix, emotionalism
- Multicultural Litimmigrant stories, indigenous voices, minority voices, cultural identity, cultural hybridity
- bodice rippersbodice ripper, ravishment, passionate embrace
- Parnassian poetryart for art's sake, impersonality, anti-romanticism
- SalgariMarianna
exotic settingshome turf
One's established domain
neighborhood · backyard · native land · home ground · suburbia