How many men does it take to read a map?
Copyright by Martin Haake, via CreativeRoots
Switzerland was gracious enough to provide occasional maps as we traveled through towns. So up hills and down hills we went slipping the clutch in our big van. Dad drove. Grandma and Grandpa had joined two of my siblings, me and my mom in the van. We struggled to find our destination. We weren’t lost… just trying to find a corner in round room, so it seemed.
Round and round we went. Finally we stopped at a map that outlined the valley. The 3 men stood out next to the sign debating. Of course, we women were sitting in the car. My mom just wanted to ask for directions. And my grandma said to her, “Sometimes you just have to let them figure it out themselves. They need to make mistakes and be wrong, and you need to let it happen. Pestering won’t get us anywhere.”
Those words stuck with me. It was great marriage advice. Sometimes you just have to let them be wrong. But more importantly, it’s fantastic travel advice. When you are going somewhere, you need to have flexible plans. You need to allow yourself to choose the wrong place to eat or a bad place to sleep or miss a tour. You need to allow yourself the freedom to wing part of your trip instead of having every second planned out. Not every part of the trip has to be perfect just because we may never get back to that place.
Those experiences, bad or good, teach us valuable lessons and allow us to see part of the country’s scenery we would have never happened upon. You get a good feel for the tourist side and the local side when you end up in a place that is less savory than you’d planned.
So what about you? What are some travel mistakes you’ve made? What’s your best travel advice to others?
