On May 1, 2015 we went to Keukenhof Gardens in the Netherlands and serendipity happened. It was Nurit’s birthday, the tulips were in bloom the sun was shining and there weren’t many people. It was also the day that I realized I’d been traveling wrong. Both my expectations and my planning had been wrong. Most travel is inconvenient, boring or difficult. Nothing is really interesting out of a bus window. But occasionally you get a “Keukenhof day” and it is all worthwhile.
Unfortunately you cannot plan for Serendipity.
Here are a few time in recent years when we have run into serendipity when we travel.One day we drove from Avignon to Carcassonne to see the ancient walled city. We had booked a room in the old city and at five o’clock most of the tourists left and we had the beautiful city almost to ourselves as the sun set behind the parapets.
At the end of a driving trip through Central Europe we went to Berlin and spent several days finding the places where Nurit’s parent and grandparents lived before Hitler. It made us go places that we never would have gone on an organized tour. Including the Jewish Cemetery in Potsdam.
On a river boat cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg we skipped the tour one day and went to the Metropol Hotel for brunch. it was magnificent and for a few moments we were in the book: A Gentleman in Moscow.
I’m going to stop here because this is already longer than my usual post. The trick is to have lots of unplanned time in small groups, to have oblique objectives, to as the book title says have Stupid Arbitrary Goals. And then maybe you will find the serendipity that makes travel worthwhile.