Trying for some spontaneity to make travels ‘happier’

It’s hard to explain my visceral reaction to the article. Just reading the headline left me in an emotional pretzel: anger, revulsion, disdain, dismissal, disbelief.

I steamed and growled!

It was about a survey that found people who are spontaneous travelers also tend to be happier.

WHAT?!?!

“That’s utter malarkey,” said the guy who had just pulled an all-nighter researching rental cars and driving Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way … and had no idea whether malarkey was a kind of fish or something you scrape off your shoe.

Spontaneous?!?

Are you kidding? Spontaneous people are the ones who accidentally fall off a cliff because they didn’t realize the sign with the figures falling off a cliff meant you could … FALL OFF A CLIFF!!! Spontaneous people come back and say, “Man, I never thought winging it would cost an extra $30,000 … plus I lost a toe!”

They’re happier?!?

It seemed like a kick in the over-planner’s crotch. I was sitting at my desk beside a big cork board sagging under the weight of travel-planning Post-It Notes and ideas and schedules, all connected by bits of string like a detective trying to piece together a murder.

This is what I do. When it comes to planning trips, I go WAY overboard. I’ve literally burned out computers researching locales, checking prices and Googling some variation of: Are cobras common in …?

I’m an over-planner. I see travel as something akin to the invasion of Normandy, and that should run like clockwork. I read tons of “things you should never travel without” stories (only to find that all of them recommend the same things: underwear and to clean out your refrigerator before you leave.)

I study it, man. I do my travel homework before I go anywhere. I “drive” on Google maps so I know the roads. I read fine print. I study train schedules and find little tips and secrets things that I think no one else knows about (but turn out to be so obvious, or expensive, that no one cared in the first place.)

If I am one thing, it’s the opposite of spontaneous. I’m ANTI-taneous! So, to read an article that said spontaneous people are “happier” was a bit of a blow. I looked at my corkboard wall and sighed. “They don’t know me,” I told it.

But was I going about it all wrong?

It was a traveler’s existential crisis. Plan until your wife comes in and says, “So … the doctor recommended this nice medication.” Or try to live a little on the edge. A little less scheduled. A little more adventurous and free.

Maybe in all this planning, I had forgotten that travel is fun not because you have it all figured out, but actually because you don’t. Because it’s something new. That’s what makes it an adventure.

Spontaneous, huh?

I guess I could try putting down (some) of my Post-It Notes and endeavoring to be a little more care-free when we travel this summer. Maybe I’ll try a restaurant I haven’t Yelp-ed or let a day fill itself organically. That could be … fun. But by golly, I’m not going anywhere until I’ve Googled if they have cobras!

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