The Power of Getting Lost!

My favorite thing to do when Traveling? Get lost.

Travel is fine. Getting lost when Traveling, well…that's fantastic!

Now, to me, "getting lost" while Traveling means wandering without any specific agenda. Sure you should have a guidebook and know about the place you're visiting, but by getting lost, amazing experiences occur.

Imagine this…

You've just finished an incredible lunch of gnocchi and are wandering down a small side-street in the Tuscan city of Siena, Italy. You could take the "main" street back to your hotel, but instead, you decide to wander down a small corridor lined with interesting shops very dissimilar from the "main" street. You're "lost"—perhaps more in thought than on the ground—although you know your hotel is somewhere in that general direction. But this is Travel after all, and you relish the chance to be Traveling.

Coming out of a small shop that specializes in silversmithing, you see an odd sight: a blue and yellow piece of material attached to a long pole flying through the air, end-over-end. Upon closer inspection, you notice the swath of material attached to the poles are "flags". Wandering closer, you see several of these flags performing all sorts of amazing aerial stunts.

Finally, you reach an archway of some courtyard, and it is filled with a group of young men twirling and throwing around flags. As you sit-down slowly on a plastic chair just inside the courtyard, you notice their sweat-streaked brows are furrowed in concentration—they don't even notice you.

After several minutes of outstanding practice, the flag throwers take what appears to be a break. A few of them notice you sitting on the chair, and you give them a smile. They return the grin. Making conversation with them as best you can, you learn that they are from a little town several miles away, here for the flag twirling competition this weekend. While highly advertised among locals, few tourists know about the annual competition, but as they can see you're a flag-twirling aficionado, they invite you to see them perform…

Experiences like this can happen when you Travel, but usually only if you are "lost". Just try it next time you Travel. But be certain to use common sense (as I always tell people, "If the alley is dark, don't go down it…"). Once you learn how to get lost, it becomes part of your Travel repertoire, and you'll never Travel the same again!

And remember, if you do have a "freak-out" experience when you're lost, just relax...In with the good air, out with the bad... Panic should be the furthest thing from your mind, because all you have to do is hail a taxi and give them the name (or address) of your hotel! You do remember the name of your hotel, right?

**By the way, you may notice I use a capital "T" for the word Travel (and any of its vernacular forms). This stems from my view that Travel—at least as I conceive it—should be a proper noun. For more on Travel with a capital T, see my article, The Traveler (with a capital "T").

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