Why I Think Getting a Little Lost Is the Whole Point

Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

There is this moment that happens when you are traveling alone and you take a wrong turn.

Not a dangerous one. Just . . . the wrong one. You meant to go left and you went right and now you are standing on a street you do not recognize, phone half dead, and no idea how far back you went from where you started.

Most people would panic. I used to panic.

Now I kind of wait to see what happens next.

. . .

I think travel culture has this obsession with optimization. See everything. Do everything. Hit every landmark on the list before sunset. Take the photo, post the photo, move to the next photo.

And look, I am not judging. I have done the itinerary thing. I have color coded spreadsheets from trips I planned two years in advance.

But the memories I actually hold onto? They are almost never from the plan.

They are from the detour.

. . .

The little bakery I found in Lisbon because I refused to pull up Google Maps and just kept walking until something smelled good.

The old man in a village outside Florence who waved me into his courtyard and insisted I try his tomatoes. I do not speak Italian. He did not speak English. We sat there for twenty minutes eating tomatoes in the sun and somehow that was enough.

The night train in Portugal where I ended up in the wrong seat and spent three hours talking to a woman who was returning home after fifteen years abroad. She cried twice. I cried once. We never exchanged numbers. It was perfect.

. . .

None of that was on any list. None of that was optimized. All of it came from being a little bit lost.

I think there is something about solo travel specifically that makes getting lost feel different. When you are with people, the group instinct kicks in and someone always has a plan and you follow the plan. That is fine. That can be lovely.

But when it is just you . . . you have no one to defer to. No one to perform competence for. You can wander for thirty minutes looking confused and it does not matter because there is no one watching you be confused.

That freedom is underrated.

. . .

I am not saying throw your phone in the sea and refuse all maps forever. That is not what this is about.

I am saying give yourself maybe one afternoon per trip where you just . . . walk. No destination. No time limit. No must see list. Just pick a direction and go until something catches your eye.

Nine times out of ten you will end up somewhere that does not exist on any travel blog. And you will have found it yourself, which makes it yours in a way that no recommendation ever can be.

. . .

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The best travel stories are always the ones that started with something going wrong. The missed bus. The closed museum. The restaurant that was fully booked so you ended up at the tiny place next door that turned out to be incredible.

Getting lost is not a failure of planning. It is the plan working in the best possible way.

. . .

So next time you are somewhere new and you do not quite know where you are . . . maybe just stay there for a minute.

Look around. See what is actually in front of you instead of what the app says should be in front of you.

You might be surprised.

Arvij writes about solo travel, food, and the small beautiful things that happen when you stop following the plan. Follow along on Medium and Substack.