Spontaneous or Planned, What's Your Style?

August 30, 2023

Another part of our journey (both travels and self-exploration), was testing spontaneity. We’re both planners and have historically booked travel months in advance. Could we survive for three months without a plan? We did survive, but we also learned a lot.

First, when traveling spontaneously, you can react to weather, natural disasters, train strikes, protests or war. However, most others will have made plans and booked the cute Airbnb, centrally located US hotel, discounted Trip Advisor recommendation and the overnight train cars, meaning your choices will be limited (remember our WELCOME page – no hostels, active older adults?!).

Throughout our August cruise, we discussed what we wanted to see and in what order. We had two fixed dates, late September we were meeting friends back in Rome and late October, we were sailing back to the US out of London. We relied on #Earthtrekkers’ fantastic recommendations as part of our research. Since Southern Europe was experiencing an unprecedented heat wave, we leaned toward locations that might be slightly cooler. Budapest topped the list and we started looking at trains out of Venice. Unfortunately, as you’ll read, without an available sleeper compartment corresponding to our hotel departure, we booked a late evening Ryan Air flight from Venice. And so began our experience with spontaneous travel.