Field Notes:  Amanda Norgaard inMallorca, Spain

Amanda Norgaard is an essayist, poet, and "Kundalini Queen," as she describes herself, and mother to her online sanctuary Illumination.

Norgaard was scouted on the streets of Copenhagen in 2008 and spent over a decade in front of the camera for titles like Interview, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue Russia, and V Magazine before shifting her focus toward writing, Kundalini yoga, and meditation. These days she moves through the world the way she writes — unhurried, curious, looking for the sacred in ordinary things. Mallorca, with its slower rhythm and centuries-old villages, turned out to be the perfect backdrop for that. And in our newest late summer and pre-fall arrivals as the cherry on top. Here's where she went.

1. Valldemossa: A Morning in the Sierra de Tramuntana

She started the day in Valldemossa, a stone village tucked into the folds of the Sierra de Tramuntana — the UNESCO-listed mountain range that runs along Mallorca's northwest coast. It's a village with more history than its size lets on: Chopin and George Sand spent a rainy winter here in 1838, and centuries before that it served as a royal retreat before becoming a Carthusian monastery.

Amanda spent the morning wandering its narrow, flower-lined streets, stopping into the small local shops that line the village center — the kind of unhurried browsing that a place like Valldemossa was built for. It's an easy stop for anyone road-tripping through Mallorca's interior, and one of the most photographed villages on the island for good reason.

2. Finca Osa Major: Slow Living on a 15th-Century Estate

From the mountains, she headed deeper into the Mallorcan countryside to Finca Osa Major, an organic estate dating back to the 15th century. This is where the trip shifted from sightseeing into something more tactile — picking vegetables straight from the garden, feeding the chickens, and walking the open fields between rows of crops and old stone walls.

Fincas like this one are central to Mallorca's identity beyond its beaches: working agricultural estates, many predating the arrival of mass tourism by hundreds of years, now quietly opening their gates to travelers who want a slower, more grounded version of the island. For Amanda, whose own work centers on presence and ritual, it was less a "stop on the itinerary" and more a place to actually settle into.

3. Cala Figuera: A Fishing Village by Wooden Boat

The last leg of the day took her to Cala Figuera, a traditional fishing village on Mallorca's southeast coast, in the municipality of Santanyí. Cala Figuera has no tourist beach and no big hotels — just a narrow, fjord-like inlet lined with whitewashed fishermen's houses and a working harbor that has changed remarkably little over the decades. It's often called one of the last "authentic" ports on the island.

She walked the harbor until she found a llaüt mallorquí — a traditional wooden sailing boat, handbuilt in the same style local fishermen have used for generations — and set out along the coast toward Far de la Torre d'en Beu, one of the old stone watchtowers that once stood guard against pirate raids along this stretch of coastline. She anchored in a small, near-empty cala nearby to catch the last light of the day, the kind of golden hour that makes it obvious why this coastline has drawn writers, painters, and now, poets like Amanda, for centuries.

Why Mallorca, Why Now

Mallorca gets reduced, often, to its beach clubs and its party towns. But the island Amanda Norgaard found — a mountain village, a working organic finca, a fishing port reached by hand-built wooden boat — is closer to what locals have always known: Mallorca rewards the slow route. Village squares instead of pool decks. A morning spent feeding chickens instead of scrolling on a beach chair. A boat ride at golden hour instead of a sunset booked through a hotel concierge.

It's a fitting itinerary for a woman who left modeling full-time to write, teach, and build community — and it's a version of Mallorca that's still very much there for anyone willing to slow down and look for it.