Your favorite outdoor spot has a scent. Take a moment and think about it: the plants and flowers, the smell of the rain-soaked or sun-baked earth, the brine of waves, even wafting notes of the food, spices, and foliage of nearby towns.
I grew up in Northern California—Marin County, which is located in the San Franciso Bay Area, to be exact. The scents of wet earth, musty redwood, bay laurel, eucalyptus, ceanothus, and salty ocean air are alive in my imagination, which means that home is never too far away.
After all, recalling the perfume of a place is one of the most immediate ways to transport yourself there—which is why fragrances inspired by outdoor spaces are worthy of a whiff.
The Case for a Place-Based Scent
According to Jasmina Aganovic, chemical and biological engineer and founder of Future Society, a fragrance brand driven by innovation, scents rooted in the physical world carry a sense of presence, grounding the wearer in something tangible.
“They evoke texture, temperature, and movement, creating immersive experiences rather than just fleeting impressions,” she says. This approach makes fragrance not just a feeling but a place and mindset you step into.”
It also makes that place portable.
Each perfume features DNA from extinct flora, with research around the plant’s origins, relatives, and extinction lending to its lore and allowing the brand to world-build around it.
When I first smelled Bo by Liis—my current signature scent, inspired by Bolinas, a tiny beach town in Marin—I immediately felt at home. This is by design. Bo and its sister scent Reyes (the latter is available in candle form) were crafted to transport wearers to the bohemian enclave of Bolinas or the neighboring shores of the Point Reyes National Seashore with just a single sniff.
While creating Bo, Liis founders Alissa Sullivan and Leslie Hendin actively compared the scent to its corresponding terrain to ensure it truly captured the landscape—and its spirit.
“Bo represents the dense coastal forest,” says Sullivan, citing the fragrance’s notes of redwood pine, guaiac wood, elemi, and cedar. She adds that the small town’s history as a haven for creatives was also considered, communicated through soft facets of vanilla, incense, and tobacco. “It’s very cozy, akin to being tucked into an enchanted place where you can live freely and truly be yourself.”
Though one could argue that the people of a place are wholly separate from the landscape, Une Nuit Nomade’s founder, Philippe Solas, believes that a destination’s scent profile is built of both. Some of the brand’s collections—current perfume trios are inspired by Oman, Montauk, and Bali feature notes aligned with specific plant life and weather patterns, while others celebrate place via the human experience within it.
“Story is often at the heart of our connection with a specific place,” says Solas. “This allows us to create freely, whether based on meaningful, raw material or a memory.”
How Do You Create a Fragrance Inspired by a Place?
Rather than basing notes on concepts and ideas, creating a destination fragrance doubles as an invitation to get outside.
“You can visit a place,” says David Seth Moltz, co-founder of D.S. & Durga, a fragrance company rooted in the spirit of New York City. “If you build realistic accords of what you find, you can capture it.”
Moltz, along with co-founder and wife Kavi and their family, while on a trip down California’s iconic Highway 1, a quick pitstop turned into a scent discovery. “We left the car on the side of the road and descended into a grove,” says Moltz. “It was foggy and had just rained. The smell was incredible—an energizing, green petrichor.” From this experience, the brand’s Big Sur After Rain candle and Big Sur Eucalyptus Eau de Parfum were born.
A fragrance that echoes the outdoors is a reminder that you are part of every landscape you move through. And just as you inform these environments with your actions, the natural world also provides lasting notes.
As Liis’ Sullivan and Hendin both grew up in Marin, their coastal-inspired scents inspire wild beauty along with nostalgia and comfort. Field trips into their backyard’s ancient temperate rainforests, mountains, cliffs, meadows, and beaches allowed them to identify native plants like oak, cedar, redwood, and herbs to serve as a grounding foundation for both Bo and Reyes. “Notes such as fog are more conceptual,” says Sullivan.
Meanwhile, Future Society’s method of honoring place is wholly unique—and involves a touch of time travel. Each perfume features DNA from extinct flora, with research around the plant’s origins, relatives, and extinction lending to its lore and allowing the brand to world-build around it.
“By merging scent, science, and storytelling, we challenge what fragrance can be and invite people to see themselves as part of something bigger,” explains Aganovic. “It’s about expanding what’s possible, using scent to tell forgotten stories and inspire a limitless view of the future.”
Your Perfume Is Alive
A fragrance that echoes the outdoors is a reminder that you are part of every landscape you move through. And just as you inform these environments with your actions, the natural world also provides lasting notes.
“Each scent represents a lesson from nature that we can carry with us,” says Aganovic. “Growth, resilience, and a commitment to ourselves.” She adds that perfumes themselves are meant to be as alive as the parallel places, revealing new depths over time.
When it comes to his destination collections, Solas considers an unearthed memory from the place in question to be the ultimate compliment. “A man once told us that [the perfume] Ambre Khandjar reminded him of the scents of the souk in Muscat, Oman,” he says. “Similarly, a young woman spoke with emotion about Love at First Sight (from our South Africa collection), saying it brought back memories of spring in Johannesburg.”
There are many ways to demonstrate reverence for a beloved piece of land, but carrying its scents and letting them mingle with your own may be among the most personal.
7 Travel Fragrances Inspired by Place
Let these perfumes take you away with their outdoorsy compositions.
1. Liis Bo
Inspired by Bolinas, California
A unique beach community, bottled. This cozy scent features notes of redwood pine, incense, cedar, tobacco leaves, and vanilla.
2. Une Nuit Nomade Fleur des Fleurs
Inspired by Bali, Indonesia
Bali’s tropical flowers, specifically Ylang-Ylang, combine with amber, grapefruit, saffron, and jasmine to capture the lush character of the island.
3. Future Society Grassland Opera
Inspired by Rock Island in the Falls of the Ohio, Kentucky
Take a trip to the past via the shallows of the Ohio River. The key notes in this fragrance come from ginger, patchouli, and DNA of the extinct Orbexilum stipulatum, which was wiped out in the 1880s.
4. Byredo Mojave Ghost
Inspired by the Mojave Desert, California
The clean complexity of the desert serves as the inspiration for Mojave Ghost. Woody notes like cedar and sandalwood are punctuated by magnolia and violet.
5. Une Nuit Nomade Nothing But Sea and Sky
Inspired by Montauk, New York
With a name pulled from a Whitman poem and a blend of milky notes and white musks, this scent aims to embody Montauk Point in winter.
6. Future Society Solar Canopy
Inspired by Molokai, Hawaii
Another ode to an extinct plant, Solar Canopy centers Molokai’s red-flowered Hibiscadelphus wilderianus, last spotted in 1912. Also, sniff for lychee, pistachio, bergamot, and Turkish rose.
7. D.S. & Durga Big Sur Eucalyptus
Inspired by Big Sur, California
Big Sur Eucalyptus uses notes of eucalyptus, cypress, rosemary, and magnolia to transport wearers (and smellers) to a grove on the California coast.
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