When we look out the window and think about beautiful places, our minds tend to dash across continents and over seas that we tend to overlook what lies right in our front lawn. The search for wonder doesn’t necessarily need to take you far, far away.

To me, the American state of Virginia falls right under the category of “across continents and over seas.” But not for DC-based filmmaker Ian Anthony Reid, one of the creative minds behind a video called Virginia Sky.

“How often do we miss the beauty that surrounds us?” he asks. “Perhaps beauty isn’t something merely to be experienced by those who travel. Perhaps, beauty surrounds us, no matter where we live.”

Reid and his team explored the DC backyard, the countryside of the northern part of Virginia, and captured the serene but extraordinary charm of six sites, all within an hour and a half from the US capital: The Potomac River, the Shenandoah River, Harpers Ferry, the Blueridge Mountains, Paris (VA), and Berryville (VA).

“In such wild and pristine scenery it was hard to remember that we were just minutes away from an international city like Washington, DC,” he adds.