When we plan a trip, our destination takes precedence over the road. We try and minimise the time spent in getting there and unknowingly we give up half of an adventure. Our trip should begin right from our doorstep and not when we reach that certain place. So, next time don’t book a flight, don’t book a train, open the map and take a bus, taxi or better yet one of those overloaded shared autos (called gramin seva, chota hathi, tum tum etc) and go the farthest it takes you towards your destination. Then get off and figure out how to cover the next many-1000 kms.
Before you scroll down to the comment section and suggest psychiatric help for me, here’s why you should be on board with this slightly crazy idea.
1. Spontaneity spells great stories
Whenever you do something spontaneously you hardly ever regret it. It gives you a rush, it brings out what you really wanted to do deep down and it gives you a better experience than you could have ever ‘planned’.
2. Get to meet the locals. Locals of many regions
When you don’t plan your route beforehand, you end up travelling by the public transport local to the many different regions you that would cross to get to your destinations. This way you end up meeting a variety of people, with different dialects and from different cultures, which is the biggest takeaway from any trip.
3. Unexpected things will happen
Why do we take trips? So that we can break free of the monotony of our daily lives, so that we witness new things. Subconsciously it is a yearning for the unexpected and what better way to live that out than this. Not planning your trip will sure as hell throw some things, good or bad, your way that you never would have imagined.
4. Reach places you didn’t expect
All those beautiful places that whir past the window of a moving train, places like those would be on your path if you don’t plan your route ahead. You get to see beauty hidden in the remote corners of the map and experience places untouched by the masses.
5.Reach places you always wanted to go to
Most often the popular, more connected places dressed in tourist friendly armour overshadow the tiny, exotically charming places. These could be the places you always wanted to go to, but couldn’t because it didn’t have an airport or was too far from your hotel, well now it could be on your way.
6. Enhance your Map-to-Road skills
Most of us can’t read a map because following the blue line on Google Maps and turning when it says turn left, isn’t ‘reading’ a map. So this will be a chance to learn to read the map and apply it to the practical ground. A tactical skill that will never go vain.
7. You’d be ready to take on anything that comes your way
The road will throw surprises your way and equip you with skills so rad that the last minute presentations your boss expects you to make or the four new chapters on the exam syllabus you didn’t know about, will seem like a child’s play.
8. Increase the adventure quotient
If you like to travel, you like adventure. Adventures can’t be planned. Period.