• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Favorite Place Writing Prompts

One place you know by heart: a room, a spot outdoors, somewhere that is gone, somewhere you made up.

Favorite Place Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. Give yourself a window you do not have, and write what goes past it in one day.Angle: morning, noon and night, one thing each.
  2. Describe your favorite place outside from above, as a bird crossing it would see it.First line: From up here it is mostly one color.
  3. What is the best seat in your favorite room? Write what you can see from it.First line: From here I can see the door, the window and whoever is coming.

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All 60 prompts

A room 15

  • Catch your favorite room at the hour when it is at its best, and write that hour. Angle: where the light falls, who else is home, what comes through the wall.
  • Choose a favorite room in a school, a library or another building, and say why you would pick it over all the others. Angle: the smell when you walk in is part of the reason.
  • Describe the kitchen you like best while somebody is cooking in it. First line: The window had already steamed over.
  • Describe your favorite room by its sounds alone. Angle: the floor, the pipes, a drawer that sticks, a voice from the next room.
  • Describe your favorite room starting at the door and going around it the way a clock's hand turns. Angle: stop at the one thing a visitor would ask about.
  • If you could change one thing about your favorite room, what would it be, and what would you never let anyone change? Angle: give the never first.
  • Make a list poem of everything on one shelf or windowsill in your favorite room. Angle: end on the thing that does not belong there.
  • Name the corner of a room that is yours and nobody else's, and tell what you keep there. Angle: three things, and the reason for the oddest one.
  • Spend a rainy afternoon in your favorite room on paper, one hour of it. Angle: say what you did, and what you only meant to do.
  • Stand in the doorway of your favorite room at night with the light off, and write what you can make out. Angle: the shapes you know by heart and the one that fools you.
  • Tell the story of one object in your favorite room: how it came there and why it stays. Angle: someone once tried to throw it out.
  • What is the best seat in your favorite room? Write what you can see from it. First line: From here I can see the door, the window and whoever is coming.
  • Whose home has a room where you always feel welcome? Describe that room. First line: The first thing I do there is take off my shoes.
  • Write a welcome note to pin on the door of your favorite room. Angle: two things a guest may do and one thing they must not touch.
  • Write about the smallest space you love: a closet nook, the spot under a desk, the back seat of a car. Angle: say how you fit in it and what you bring along.

An outdoor spot 15

  • Describe the best spot in a park or a playground, and what you do when someone else gets there first. Angle: say what makes it the best before you say who took it.
  • Describe your favorite outdoor spot so well that a stranger would know it on sight. Angle: no directions and no street names, only what the place looks like.
  • Describe your favorite place outside from above, as a bird crossing it would see it. First line: From up here it is mostly one color.
  • Is there a tree, a rock or a bench you think of as yours? Describe it so it could not be mistaken for another. Angle: a mark, a lean, a crack, the way it feels under your hand.
  • Pick your favorite place to sit outside in bad weather, and describe an afternoon there. First line: Nobody else wants this bench in the rain.
  • Show your favorite place outside in the season when it is at its best, then in the season when it is at its worst. Angle: one thing stays the same in both.
  • Spend an hour on paper at your favorite place by water: a creek, a pool, a pier, a puddle that comes back every spring. Angle: what the water is doing when you arrive and when you leave.
  • Stand still in your favorite outdoor spot with your eyes closed. What do you hear? Angle: list five sounds, nearest first.
  • Tell about the day you first found your favorite outdoor place. First line: I was looking for something else.
  • Watch your favorite outdoor spot through the few minutes when the light changes, at sunrise or at dusk. Angle: write the colors in the order they arrive or leave.
  • Where outdoors do you do your best thinking? Describe what you look at while you do it. Angle: the thing your eyes rest on, and how far away it is.
  • Which animals share your favorite outdoor spot? Include the ones you have only seen signs of. Angle: a feather, a hole, a track in the mud, a rustle in the hedge.
  • Who do you bring to your favorite outdoor spot, and who have you never brought? Write about both. Angle: what would the second person not understand about it?
  • Write a field guide page for your favorite outdoor spot: what grows, what visits and what to bring. Angle: add one warning, even a small one, like wet socks.
  • Write the path to your favorite place, and the moment on it when you know you are nearly there. Angle: a smell, a turn, a sound underfoot.

A place that is gone 15

  • A favorite place has changed so much that it is a different place now. Write what used to be there. Angle: one thing only you seem to remember.
  • A field or an empty lot you played in has a building on it now. Write what the ground used to be good for. Angle: three games, one shortcut and one thing found in the grass.
  • A store or a restaurant you loved has closed. Walk through it from memory. Angle: what stood by the entrance, what you always chose, who was behind the counter.
  • Bring back a favorite place that is not there any more, as it looked on its best day. Angle: start at the door or the gate.
  • Describe a favorite place that lasted only one day: a fair, a snow fort, a blanket tent, a sandcastle. Angle: how it was built, and how it ended.
  • Draw a map from memory of a favorite place that is gone, then write about the part you could not remember. Angle: what do you think belonged in the blank?
  • Find a photo of a place that is gone and write what is just outside the edge of the picture. Angle: to the left, to the right, and behind whoever held the camera.
  • Recall the smell of a place that is gone, and where you last smelled something close to it. First line: It was floor wax and oranges.
  • Remember a playground, a treehouse or a fort that was taken down, and write one afternoon in it. Angle: who else was there, and what game was going on.
  • Tell someone younger about a favorite place they will never get to see. Angle: answer the three questions they would ask.
  • Think of a classroom you will never sit in again. Write where your seat was and what you could see from it. Angle: the wall you faced, the window, the back of somebody's head.
  • Whose kitchen, porch or garage do you miss? Write an ordinary afternoon there. Angle: what was always on the table, and what you were allowed to touch.
  • Write a letter to a favorite place you had to leave. First line: I did not get to say goodbye to the yard.
  • Write the last visit to a favorite place, on a day when you did not know it was the last. Angle: keep it ordinary. What did you do, and what did you leave unfinished?
  • You have moved away from a home you loved. Give the family who lives there now a tour of it as it was, front door to back. First line: One stair creaks. Step over it, the way I still do in my head.

A place I have only imagined 15

  • Build a treehouse on paper, floor by floor, and say what each floor is for. Angle: the top floor is the smallest and the best.
  • Describe a place you have made up as if you were standing in it right now. Angle: what is under your feet, what is overhead, the farthest thing you can see.
  • Describe a town that exists only in your head: its main street, its best shop and its one odd law. First line: Nobody there is allowed to hurry on a Sunday.
  • Describe an island that is exactly the right size for you. Angle: how long it takes to walk around, and what you find on the far side.
  • Design a hideout and write the rules for who may come in. Angle: the password changes, and so does the reason.
  • Give yourself a window you do not have, and write what goes past it in one day. Angle: morning, noon and night, one thing each.
  • Go back to a place from a story you made up when you were little, and describe it now. Angle: what did you get wrong about how the world works, and is it better that way?
  • If you could have any room at all, what room would you build? Say what it is for before you say what is in it. First line: It has no clock, and that is on purpose.
  • Imagine a place where you could be alone whenever you liked, and write how you get there. Angle: the way in is hidden in plain sight.
  • Imagine your favorite real place a hundred years from now, and describe what is still the same. Angle: one thing has not moved at all.
  • Invent a garden and walk through it at the time of year when it is at its best. Angle: name what grows by the gate, in the middle and at the far wall.
  • Invent two favorite places: one for a rainy day and one for the hottest day of summer. Angle: say what each has that the other could not.
  • Lead a guest on a tour of a place you imagined, ending at the spot you saved for last. First line: Mind the step. I put it there myself.
  • Picture a place you know only from someone else's stories, and describe it as you see it. Angle: then say which detail you probably got wrong.
  • Send a postcard home from a place you have imagined and never visited. First line: You would not believe the color of the water.

How it works

A favorite place writing prompt works when it is narrow: one seat, one hour, one shelf. These are sorted by the kind of place, and each asks for a description a reader could stand inside.

Read the full guide

My favorite place writing prompt: begin small

My favorite place is too big to write. The best seat in my favorite room is not. Most prompts here cut the place down: the corner that is yours and nobody else's, the spot under a desk, the few minutes when the light changes.

When the favorite place is gone or made up

Fifteen prompts are for a place that is not there any more: a store that closed, a classroom, a snow fort that lasted a day. Fifteen more are for places that never were: a hideout with rules, a window you do not have, an island of exactly the right size.

  • Choose the place before the prompt. One room fits a dozen of them.
  • Shut your eyes and list what you would hear there. Then write.

Questions and answers

What is a good favorite place writing prompt?

One that asks for a single view. Stand in the doorway of your favorite room at night with the light off, and write what you can make out. Or describe your favorite place outside from above, as a bird crossing it would see it.

How do I start writing about my favorite place?

Start where you would walk in. Several prompts hand over the order: begin at the door and go around the room the way a clock's hand turns, or write the path there and the moment you know you are nearly there.

Can a favorite place be one I have only imagined?

Yes. A quarter of the list is for that: the room you would build if you could have any room at all, a town that exists only in your head, a postcard home from somewhere you have never visited.

Are these favorite place prompts for kids?

Yes. None asks for an address, a street name or the way to anyone's home. The first prompt for an outdoor spot says it plainly: no directions, only what the place looks like.

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