What improv comedy taught one writer about travelling better: say 'yes, and…'

The best travel advice in this story doesn't come from a guidebook — it comes from a comedy stage. A writer with years of amateur improv behind him says the craft never made him funnier, but it did make him a far better traveller, thanks to one rule every improviser lives by: 'yes, and…'. In improv, you accept whatever your scene partner offers, then build on it. No closed doors, no dead ends. Applied to travel, it means treating invitations, delays and detours as material rather than problems.

He's quick to flag the obvious risk: saying yes to literally everything can land you in a hostess bar in Hiroshima at 2am with a bill that kills the mood. His point is subtler. 'Yes' is about acceptance and openness, not agreeing to every beach vendor flogging fake sunglasses. It's a mindset that lets a trip surprise you instead of a rigid itinerary dictating every hour.

The examples are good ones. That hazy night in Hiroshima left him too hungover for the Peace Memorial the next day — and rather than treating the missed sight as a failure, he ended up returning to spend an entire month in the city, which he ranks among the best months of his life. In Myanmar, a friend's procrastination meant domestic flights were sold out by the time he booked. Instead of scrapping the trip, the group found a man with a van on Facebook and paid him $1,000 to drive them around the country for two weeks. Not remotely in the plan, and all the better for it.

Then there's the 'and…' half of the equation, which is where the real magic happens. A bus in Laos running seven hours behind schedule can either be torture or a chance to befriend the people stuck next to you. The writer's argument is that the difference between a passenger and a traveller comes down to whether you accept your role in the unfolding scene. As he puts it, no good travel story ends with 'everything went according to plan' — but plenty start with 'yes, and…'.

It's a refreshingly low-cost piece of travel wisdom. No gear, no bookings, no app. Just a willingness to let the trip write itself when your script falls apart — because it always, eventually, does.