Why I Stopped Planning and Started Listening

For most of my life, I was a planner. Colour-coded spreadsheets. Itineraries broken into hourly blocks. Contingency plans for the contingency plans. I thought control was the same thing as safety.

Then I missed a train in rural Portugal. And then another. And instead of panicking, I sat down in a village café and ordered whatever the woman behind the counter pointed at. It turned out to be the best meal I'd eaten in years.

"Sometimes the best direction is the one you didn't choose."

That afternoon, I walked into a conversation with a retired teacher who told me about a coastal path I'd never heard of. Two days later I was walking it alone, watching dolphins from a cliff I would never have found on any itinerary.

Listening to a place, to your instincts, to the gentle nudge of curiosity is a skill most of us unlearn in adulthood. We replace it with efficiency. With optimization. With the relentless need to know what comes next.

I'm learning to travel the way I want to live: open, unhurried, and willing to be surprised.