Long before travel became her profession, Nuria Val spent family holidays in a caravan called Rápido (meaning ‘fast’ in Spanish), whose flowered curtains she still remembers. Modelling took the Barcelona-born photographer abroad at 17, and she began capturing the places where she worked, developing an interest in the natural world that would eventually lead her into beauty. Trips to Lanzarote, Iceland and Japan helped inspire Rowse, the plant-based skincare brand she co-founded with Gabriela Salord in 2018. She is now preparing to open Vila Oliveta, a hotel and artists’ residence in southern Catalonia, with her husband and their daughter Oli.
As she prepares to host guests, Val is also making plans for Peru following a recent trip to Norway. Her cameras are invariably packed, sometimes alongside a garment she hopes to photograph if the right setting presents itself, although she admits she is trying to resist recording everything. What stays with her, she says, is how a place felt: ‘Pictures are how I try to get the feeling back.’ In this edition of Wallpaper’s In Transit, Val discusses childhood caravan holidays, her affection for sleeper trains and the beauty essentials she applies in the back of a taxi.
How Nuria Val travels
Wallpaper*: What’s your earliest travel memory?
Nuria Val: My family had a caravan called Rápido, with beautiful floral curtains. I think I was around three. I remember those trips with my older brother and sister as something magical.
W*: What role does travel play in your life now, personally and through work?
NV: Mostly work. That’s something I’d love to change in the coming years.
W*: What attracts you to a destination?
NV: Nature.
W*: Do you pack for who you are, or who you think you’ll become on that trip?
NV: A mix. I pack depending on how I feel at that moment, so it’s part who I am, part who I’d like to be when I get there.
W*: What’s the most unnecessary thing you always bring ‘just in case’, and the most essential?
NV: The essential: my cameras. The ‘just in case’: there’s always one piece I’ve already pictured in a photograph, and I pack it, hoping to find the right spot for it.
W*: Do you remember places more by how they looked or how they felt?
NV: How they felt, which is strange for a photographer. The pictures are how I try to get the feeling back.
W*: Do you tend to capture moments when you travel, or let them stay unrecorded?
NV: Lately, I’m trying to be more present instead of capturing everything. Not easy for a photographer.
W*: How do you look after yourself while travelling back-to-back?
NV: Water, less coffee than I’d like, and a walk on arrival to reset. Skin-wise, I keep it simple: the same few products wherever I am, so my skin doesn’t notice the change of country.
W*: What’s one beauty essential you always travel with?
NV: The Rowse All Day serum with niacinamide and Rowse Summer Mist. Planes dry everything out, and these keep my skin calm and even through long days and different climates.
W*: What’s your go-to beauty hack while on the go?
NV: The Rowse Lip and Cheek Balm in Peach Blush. One product for lips and cheeks, applied with my fingers in a taxi.
According to Nuria...
Journey or destination? ‘Journey. The destination is usually what I’m photographing. The journey is where magic and unexpected things happen.’
Window or aisle? ‘Window. Professional habit. I look at the light on the clouds and think about how I’d expose it.’
Early flight or last flight of the day? ‘Always early. Arriving with a full day ahead feels like stealing one.’
Fold or roll? ‘Roll. Linen creases either way, so I’ve made peace with it.’
Plan everything or arrive and figure it out? ‘Plan the logistics, leave the days open. The best pictures rarely happen on schedule. My magic moments are always sunrise and sunset.’
Who’s always on your playlist? ‘Frank Ocean.’
Last place you travelled to, and where next? ‘Norway. Next is Peru.’
Kiss, marry, ghost: plane, train or car? ‘Marry the train, kiss the car, ghost the plane. A sleeper train is the only way to travel where the landscape arrives slowly enough to understand it.’
