A writer for Traveller recently spent an entire day in Seoul doing... not much. A slow morning, a randomly chosen patisserie, an hour or three with a book, some aimless shop-browsing, ramen at an unremarkable noodle joint. By afternoon the guilt had kicked in — shouldn't there have been a day tour, a vetted restaurant, a checklist being ticked? On reflection, that unstructured day turned out to be exactly what the trip needed.
The piece taps into a very modern travel habit: treating a holiday like a project. Mood boards, colour-coded Google Maps pins, reservations booked with military precision, every top-ten list consumed before the plane even boards. The irony, the author notes, is that nobody comes home raving about making their 2.15pm museum entry slot. The stories we actually tell are about the tiny wine bar stumbled into after a downpour, or the strangers met after a missed train forced a change of plans.
That's not an argument for total chaos, though. The author admits to skipping a hotel booking in Tibet and paying for it with a stressful 9pm conversation with local authorities. The trick is keeping the useful scaffolding — accommodation, the one restaurant you've dreamed about for months, non-negotiable bookings — while loosening the grip on everything else.
The practical suggestions are refreshingly simple. Don't overbook: a city with seventeen museums doesn't require you to see them all before lunch. If you're away longer than a few days, build in buffer days — commitment-free stretches with no agenda beyond being in the place. Leave a few dinners unplanned and ask your taxi driver where they eat, or follow locals into an unassuming noodle shop. And when the nagging internal voice asks whether you're "making the most" of your trip, ignore it and go back to chatting with the stranger next to you.
Not every spontaneous moment will be magic — sometimes the local recommendation is mediocre and a lazy day really was a waste. But the argument is that the odds tip in your favour when you leave gaps for luck. The best souvenir, the piece suggests, isn't a completed itinerary; it's the ability to do less, notice more and actually be where you are.
