I have always been a (sometimes excessive) planner, but for this RTW journey I chose to go spontaneous. Here is why.
Years ago when I took my first international trip, I planned EVERYTHING. I had a schedule and knew exactly what I would do for each hour of each day. The trip turned out to be fun (as with most first time of anything) but restrictive. There was not much room for meeting new people or doing things unplanned because I was too busy sticking to my schedule.
Earlier this week I was leaving Belgium heading to Luxembourg. I didn’t have a train ticket reserved, so the night before departure I started browsing on my GoEuro app to see what options I had. I ended up taking Blar Blar Car (European version of Uber / Lift) the next morning because it was the fastest and cheapest. Sitting next to me in the small sedan was a girl from Belgium studying in France, majoring in Chinese (How cool is that!?). We had some interesting conversations going that made my 2-hour commute (5 hours for her) felt a lot quicker – If I were to have a set itinerary, I would probably already have a train ticket reserved months in advance and would not be up for taking Blar Blar Car at the last minute.
Last night I was sitting in the hostel common room in Zurich catching up with emails. When I was about to go to sleep, a traveler from Korea started chatting with me. We ended up staying out at a nearby pub until 3am, so that I could listen to his hiking stories in the Alps – If I were to have an itinerary of any sort, I would probably be sleeping by then preparing to catch my bus the next morning, instead of chatting with a new friend in a pub until late night.
When possible, play it by ear. Spontaneity makes travel more flexible and oftentimes leads to unexpected and interesting experience.
#Belgium #Luxembourg #Switzerland
