The Trip You Actually Want to Take

There is a moment, usually somewhere between opening a guidebook and discovering how many restaurant tabs are now open on your telephone, when a perfectly pleasant holiday begins to feel like a research project. The cathedral must be seen. The little bar somebody described as “a hidden gem” must be found. Someone else insists that a proper traveller would avoid both and have lunch with a fisherman.

Before booking a table, it may be worth asking a simpler question: what would you actually like this journey to give you?

A very good reason to see the obvious

There is no shame in wanting to see the famous things. They are often famous because they are magnificent. A first glimpse of a celebrated square, a museum you have known from photographs, or a monument emerging at the end of a street can be every bit as moving as you hoped. You are allowed to be delighted, even if several hundred other people have had the same idea and one of them is holding a rather determined selfie stick.

A list of landmarks can give a trip its shape, especially when time is short. The trick is to leave enough space between them to notice where you are. A coffee after the museum, a wrong turn on the way to the station, or ten minutes sitting in the square rather than marching through it may become the part you remember most.

If photographs are what you want, that is perfectly respectable too. An image can be a souvenir of a place you have long wished to see. Just consider whether you would also like a moment without the camera: the noise of the street, the weather, the slightly ridiculous feeling of finally standing somewhere that used to exist only on a screen.

At the table with an open mind

Anthony Bourdain's travels suggested another possibility: using food, conversation and curiosity as ways into a place. The appeal was not simply finding an excellent meal. It was the sense that a table might introduce you to people, histories and a point of view you had not expected.

You need not recreate his itinerary or appoint yourself a fearless television host. Start with a small question at a café, visit a market, try a dish you have never heard of, or ask someone what they genuinely like to eat. Listen more than you announce. The people who live there are not part of an immersive experience arranged for your benefit; they may have somewhere to be, and their lunch is entitled to remain their lunch.

Trying local food can be one of the most generous pleasures of travel. A bowl of something unfamiliar may become the story you tell for years. Equally, dietary needs, allergies, budgets, health, religion and personal comfort are real considerations. There is no medal for eating something unsafe or making yourself miserable to satisfy another traveller's idea of authenticity. Ask questions, choose what works for you, and remain curious where you can.

The art of doing very little

Then there is the all-inclusive hotel, that much-discussed institution where the most demanding decision of the day may concern the location of your next chair. For a tired person who wants the sea, a book and no further correspondence with a booking system, this can be a remarkably sensible arrangement.

Not every journey must transform you. Sometimes a holiday is for sleeping properly, swimming before breakfast and discovering that lunch has quietly appeared. A resort can offer convenience, predictability and rest. If you also want a sense of the surrounding place, consider spending a day outside its gates, eating at a local restaurant or visiting an independent shop. Do it because it is the holiday you want, rather than because an imaginary panel of seasoned travellers has demanded it.

A suitcase full of expectations

Different travelling habits often reveal different hopes. One person wants galleries and a full calendar; another wants to return to the same café until the waiter recognises them. One is happiest with a camera, another with a pool and an hour in which nobody asks a question. Trouble begins when everyone assumes they booked the same holiday simply because they booked the same flight.

Talk about it before you go. Is this a journey for rest, discovery, photographs, food, company, or some pleasing mixture? How much do you want to plan, and how much room should remain for an afternoon that refuses to be organised? A little honesty can prevent an ambitious sightseeing schedule from meeting a determined sun lounger at breakfast.

The best trips often contain more than one answer. See the landmark, then wander down a side street. Try the local speciality, then order something familiar if that is what you feel like. Spend a day speaking to no one but a bookseller, or spend it by the pool with a magazine and absolutely no intention of improving yourself.

Travel need not be a competition for the most authentic story. Choose the experience you came for, treat the people and places around you with consideration, and leave a little space for the journey to surprise you. If the photograph is lovely and you also remember how the afternoon felt, so much the better.