Korpela and colleagues relocate restoration from researcher-selected stimuli to places people themselves choose. The favorite place becomes an environmental self-regulation device: a recurrent spatial resource through which stress, attention and mood are managed. Surveying residents of Helsinki and Tampere, the study finds stronger restorative experiences in waterside environments, outdoor exercise areas and extensively managed natural settings than in built urban places or conventional urban parks. Yet its most valuable contribution is not a hierarchy of landscape types. It is the model linking restorative need, frequency and duration of visits, nature connectedness, social relations and perceived health. The work makes repetition analytically visible: restoration is not merely produced by a single exposure but can become embedded in habits of spatial return. The bridge to urban studies is substantial. Favorite places disclose an informal geography of psychological infrastructure, showing how personal attachment, everyday mobility and urban ecology converge in sites that are neither prescribed by health systems nor fully captured by conventional land-use categories.