The Fascinating Activity That Inspires Nate Berkus' Unique Design Choices

Nate Berkus has long been praised for his creativity, whether he's working with his husband Jeremiah Brent on their HGTV show "The Nate and Jeremiah Home Project" or developing products for others to enjoy in their homes. And where there's creativity, there's inspiration. In the past, Berkus' mom, who was also an interior designer, served as a big influencer early in his career, he admitted to HGTV. What's inspiring him more recently? According to his revelations in an Instagram post, it's traveling the world.

Yes, Berkus opens up in an Instagram reel about how he's been "drawn to travel" as an "endless source of inspiration." In addition to designing homes and products based on his journeys, he gleans ideas for interiors that he crafts with his family. This can include incorporating ideas inspired by buildings, textures, and materials he comes across and rich colors that always linger in his imagination when he returns home.

Among his travels, Nate Berkus counts a trip to southern Europe as a stand-out experience. "One recent trip to Comporta, in Portugal, was one of the most magical vacations we've ever had as a family. But I was really moved by the local architecture and natural materials, the colorful pottery, the mix of vintage things with very simple sort of plaster finishes," he notes about a beach town slightly over an hour away from the colorful streets of Lisbon (via Instagram).

As he thoughtfully composes his thoughts about his visit to this quaint European hamlet, Berkus reveals that he saw Comporta "through the lens of inspiration in terms of design." He goes on to say that the result of viewing the world in this way is a "vocabulary of color combinations, material combinations, things that I know from this point forward will bleed into the way I see future design projects." In essence, all the beauty and intrigue found through traveling seeps into his subliminal mind and later resurfaces as he's working. It's really no wonder that so many distinctive objects are regularly incorporated into his creativity as an interior designer when you consider his source of inspiration.