I have realised that some of my best trips happen when I don’t really know where I’m going.
Recently, Jagdev and I came back from Shimla. We got home, spent two days there, and then, instead of settling back into our normal routine, we decided to go out again.
There was no big reason.
We weren’t celebrating anything. We hadn’t been planning another trip. We didn’t have a hotel booked or a list of places we wanted to visit.
We just felt like getting out.
So we got into the car.
And then came the obvious question:
Where do we go?
Neither of us had a particularly good answer.
We started driving anyway.
At some point, Kurukshetra came up.
“Let’s go to Kurukshetra.”
And that was pretty much the plan.
We live in Zirakpur. How had we never been to Kurukshetra?
This is the part that still makes me laugh.
Kurukshetra isn’t some impossibly distant destination for us. We live in Zirakpur. It’s a place we’ve heard about all our lives.
But we’d never actually gone there.
I’d thought about Kurukshetra as a historical place, a name I’d grown up hearing, but not really as somewhere I’d go for a two-day trip.
So when we decided to go, I didn’t have any great expectations.
I certainly didn’t have a list of things to see.
We were basically going to find out what was there when we got there.
And it turned out there was quite a lot.
We ended up staying for two days
Once we arrived, the trip started taking shape on its own.
We went to Brahm Sarovar.
Then Jyotisar.
We visited Sheikh Chilli’s Tomb and the Dharohar Museum.
We also went to Karna Lake near Karnal.
What I liked was that none of these places had been sitting on some itinerary I’d prepared at home.
We were discovering them as we went.
One place would lead us to another, we’d look at what was nearby, decide what sounded interesting and head there.
There was no pressure to see everything.
And that made a difference.
We stayed for two days, had a really good time and still came back knowing that we hadn’t seen everything.
That’s actually a nice feeling.
Usually, when you take a trip, there is a strange satisfaction in saying, “Okay, we’ve done everything.”
This wasn’t like that.
It felt more like we’d discovered a place and only scratched the surface.
I think that’s what I enjoy about not planning everything
If we’d planned this trip properly, I’m sure we would have found all these places beforehand.
We would have known where we were going each morning.
We might have booked a hotel in advance, worked out a route and decided exactly how many hours we were going to spend at each place.
And we probably would have had a perfectly organised trip.
But we wouldn’t have had that moment when we were sitting at home after coming back from Shimla and suddenly decided:
Let’s just go somewhere.
I like those moments.
They don’t happen very often when everything in your life is scheduled.
We spend too much time thinking we need a reason to go somewhere
I’ve noticed this about myself.
If I think about taking a trip, I immediately start asking questions.
Where?
For how many days?
Where will we stay?
What will we see?
Is it worth going?
How much will it cost?
And by the time you’ve answered all those questions, sometimes the excitement has disappeared.
This Kurukshetra trip didn’t start that way.
We didn’t need a reason.
We just wanted to get out of the house.
And once we were on the road, the destination became the reason.
You also start noticing places closer to home
There is something else I liked about this trip.
It made me think about how many places around us we simply never visit.
We are always thinking about the next big destination.
A hill station.
A different state.
A flight somewhere.
But there are towns, historical places, lakes, markets and little roads much closer to home that we’ve never bothered to explore.
Kurukshetra was one of those places for us.
We had been living in Zirakpur and somehow never made the trip.
Now we’ve been there, and I’m already thinking about going back.
Not because we didn’t enjoy it the first time.
Quite the opposite.
There is still more to see.
Maybe that’s the best kind of trip
I’m not against planning.
There are trips where you absolutely need to plan. If you’re going somewhere remote, travelling during a busy season or have limited time, a little preparation makes sense.
But I don’t think every trip needs to be treated like a project.
Sometimes you can just get in the car.
Pick a direction.
See what happens.
Stop somewhere because it looks interesting.
Change your plans halfway through the day.
Stay another night because you’re enjoying yourself.
And come home without having completed some carefully constructed checklist.
That’s what happened with Kurukshetra.
We had just returned from Shimla.
We stayed home for two days.
Then Jagdev and I got restless, got into the car and went looking for somewhere to go.
We chose Kurukshetra almost on a whim.
We stayed for two days.
We saw Brahm Sarovar, Jyotisar, Sheikh Chilli’s Tomb, the Dharohar Museum and Karna Lake.
We had a really good time.
And there are still things we haven’t seen.
So we’ll probably go back.
Maybe we’ll plan the next trip.
Or maybe we’ll do exactly what we did this time.
Get in the car and figure it out along the way.
I think I prefer it that way.
