Spontaneity or security in travel
Monday, January 2, 2023 at 08:43AM
Adventure without risk is Disneyland.
Doug Coupland
The photo above was taken at 5:30am on a December morning on a trip to the Philippines in 2019. I had just stepped off an overnight bus from Manila to Banaue. I did not have a hotel reservation. I started walking toward what I thought was the center of this small town, backpack on my shoulders.
Luckily, I met a friendly fellow doing early morning street sweeping a couple of blocks further on. He recommended a small hotel just a few doors away. Also luckily, the hotel had a night shift clerk who was awake and got me into a room. Uyami's Green View Lodge became my home for the next few days as I hiked the ancient rice terraces of the area with a local guide recommended by the hotel. (Original post can be found here.)
By contrast, on my most recent travels to Europe, I left little to chance. I had my hotel rooms booked. I spent most of my time on a guided boat/bike trip that provided not just a place to stay, but my meals and short tours as well. One thing I did not plan for was reservations needed for major museums in Amsterdam. So I missed out on what would have been my fifth or sixth time visiting the Van Gogh.
I am now engaged in planning a return trip to the Philippines and a cycling trip along the Mekong River. The cycling trip is organized. Hotels/hostels are booked pre- and post-trip in Siem Reap and Saigon. Flight reservations (most of them) are made. I have informed my brother and sister-in-law when they can expect me to be at their home in Paponga for a couple days.
But I still have some blank spaces on my travel calendar. The 10 days between the time I leave my brother’s place and need to be in Siem Reap is a time for me to explore - this time the islands to the south of Luzon instead of the rice fields of the north. So I am debating just how much planning I should do for my wandering days. Book a resort now - or just show up and hope for the best?
While I have been lucky at times (staying at the wonderful Izhcayluma Retreat in Vilcabamba, Ecuador), I have been growing increasingly anxious about spontaneous travel. While in my 30s, I could accept sleeping on a beach in Hydra, Greece, but I don’t know how my somewhat older body would respond to sand fleas and drunken revelers now. Will the places I am traveling be booked up like the Van Gogh museum or will they be at 15% capacity like the Galapagos cruise ship last year?
Perhaps I need to face reality: that I will never have the backpacker mentality of those 20-somethings I’ve encountered in small hostels in Frankfurt or Santa Marta or Vientiane - those whose youthful travels are carefree, endless, and, most probably, quite memorable -who can still sleep on a beach or in a bunk bed when necessary. While I can quite easily stuff what clothes and toiletries I need into a backpack, my anxiety about where I might next find a room does not fit.
I guess I just talked myself into booking a few more reservations…
Reader Comments (7)
I'm not adventurous as you so I like to have a basic schedule planned. In late March, a friend and I are finally going to do the Netherlands trip that we had to cancel back in 2020. We have our airline tickets paid for and a houseboat booked through AirBnB. Beyond that, we will play the rest of the trip by ear, based on the weather and things we learn from people we meet. It's as close to the post-college backpacking around Europe trip I never got to take.
On the other hand, my wife would hate a trip like that. She likes to have a schedule laid out in advance (mostly; gotta have some open time for shopping), which is probably why she enjoys cruising. Even though I shudder at the idea of being trapped on a ship with 3000 people for a week or more, I will probably give in and take her on one later in the year. I guess I can treat it as a photo assignment. :-)
Enjoy your trip back to Southeast Asia. The bike trip along the Mekong sounds amazing and I look forward to reading the stories and seeing the photos.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the comment. Your trip to the Netherlands sounds great. I've done several bike trips there and I love Amsterdam. But the countryside is wonderful too.
Can you compromise on a smaller cruise ship with your wife? I did the giant Caribbean cruise once and didn't think much of it, but the cruises on smaller ships (Alaska, the Rhine, the Galapagos) were quite enjoyable. I don't, however, remember a whole lot of shopping excursions on them!
Have a great new year!
Doug
Failing to plan is planning to fail?
Men plan; the gods laugh...
Kenn,
Your email address no longer works for me. Would you send me a new one?
Thanks,
Doug
I, too, tended to free-style my travel quite a bit more back in the 80s and 90s. "Planning" consisted of leafing through a Lonely Planet guidebook, and if things didn't work out, well... I spent a night curled up in a Paris phone booth once. Then came the internet and cheaper (relatively) air travel, both of which I heartily approve. Those have had the effect of allowing more people to experience the joy of international travel, however, and in my experience, hotels are becoming more fully booked, making just-in-time lodging more of a risk. (This varies depending on where one travels, of course.)
Hi Richard,
I've observed this as well. I think of the difference between taking my son (early 2000s) and my grandsons (mid 2010s) to say, Isla Mujeres, the number of tourists increased dramatically. So perhaps it is not just my age that is making me reluctant to travel spontaneously.
Happy travels to you!
Doug