Some Spanish friends visited Aotearoa New Zealand recently and they told me that they were deliberately having an unplanned trip.
They brought a dice with them and each morning they made a list of possibilities of things to do and places to go within a reasonable distance and either rolled the dice when there were multiple choices or flipped a coin if there were two choices.
I tried hard to let them know about special places that were alternatives to well known tourist traps and initially I found it very frustrating as I watched from afar as they bounced around, sometimes going to the place that I recommended but more often ending up at someplace listed on a tourist website or top 30 must see list posted by an Instagram influencer.
Eventually though, I accepted that they were doing it their way for their own reasons and when we met up towards the end of their trip and discussed their experiences they had lots of stories and had thoroughly enjoyed their trip.
Who knows if they would have had a "better" experience if they had always taken my advice based on local experience or if they had researched the possibilities to the Nth degree and planned each activity of each day.
They had the trip that they had and they enjoyed it.
It depends on one's intentions. Always good to have some information and knowledge, but people differ with their level of comfort with uncertainty. I am leaving on May 22nd on my first Camino, with some knowledge but also trust that it will unfold as it should.
At the beginning of this year, I took a term off (plus 3 weeks of school holiday) with the intention of walking a number of small, connecting routes in Spain. It's very stressful living in Burma...
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