I was once on a panel of travel writers at an event in London, and one of the questions we were asked was, “What experience best sums up travel for you?”
I replied “that’s easy! DELAYS!” – and got a big laugh.
It’s true. You can’t avoid them. No trip will ever go 100% according to plan like perfectly-engineered Swiss clockwork – and mishaps can strike at any time. A critical connection will be a few minutes late. Too many people or too few staff will cause an unexpected bottleneck somewhere. Vehicles need double-checking for safety issues. The wrong sort of weather whips up and everyone has to wait for it to blow through. The hotel’s not ready for you yet. There’s a big football game somewhere nearby, so the streets and public transport are absolutely heaving and everything’s slowed to a crawl…
Even with experienced travel companies like Wheel & Anchor doing their very best to plan ahead, someone minor is bound to go awry – and when (when!) it does, you’re bound to be left kicking your heels for a while as things get adjusted on the fly.
I’m a long way from being the most well-travelled person I know, but I’ve had my share of unexpected afternoons in airports and city centres, and the occasional hastily-booked overnight hotel stay.
(One time when I was returning back from Belfast, thick fog descended on southern England and all flights to Gatwick and nearby airports were cancelled. Since both my partner and I needed to be in London the next day, this led to a hastily-assembled plan B involving an overnight ferry to Liverpool and a memorable journey by train under the Mersey – after which we found Liverpool city centre in bright sunshine and more or less abandoned, because it was so early that almost everyone was still in bed. This is why one of the best travel tips I know is: if you want to see somewhere without the crowds, be prepared to get up at a truly horrible hour of the morning when nobody else would.)
It’s easy to feel grumpy when plans fall apart, and I usually do. It’s also easy to allow it to ruin the whole day, writing off all the fun you’ve had (and will have, after it’s resolved). If that’s happened to you, it’s because you’re human, and I’m not lifting a single finger to judge you on it.
But – what’s really happening, when things go wrong like this?
Usually, it’s a quick change of plans, with the tail-end of those plans as yet unresolved – with new opportunities for exploration.
A while back, I wrote about the power of the best accidental discoveries:
“When you’re travelling, serendipity is inescapable because everything is just so foreign and new. Accidental discoveries are easy when everything you meet is a relentless parade of novelty. That’s one of the great gifts of exploring the world.”
Anything you can do to make these serendipitous moments more likely is going to make your journey more memorable. Those moments of connection and kindness that warm your heart will have more staying-power in your memory than any quantity of temporary annoyances resulting from delays and cancellations. It certainly may not feel like that at the time, but consult your own fondest memories of every trip you’ve taken. And weren’t they special because you felt so lucky to have them, being the right person in the right place at the right time?
For me, this is why a delay is an opportunity to spin a bit of gold from what initially looks like nothing but straw, by turning “the wrong time” for one thing into “the right time” for another. Okay – this delay is happening, and there’s no way around it. Fine. It means you’re not going to be doing what you’d planned to do this afternoon. But what else is possible here? What could you do instead?
If you’re part of a tour, they may have lots of good suggestions for you, or even contingency plans already in place for moments like this. But if you’re on your own, maybe it’s an invitation for you to do something you’d never do in these kinds of situations. If you’re an extra few hours (or even a whole day) in a place you’ve only ever experienced in transit to somewhere else, and considering how single-mindedly focused on our destination most of us are when we travel, have you ever really seen this place at all? How much of it could you see in this extra time you have?
For me, this is as much a call to adventure as anything else when I travel.
And yes, this really does include those big transportation hubs that look so soulless when we’re speeding through them. Just read Alain de Botton’s wonderfully interesting A Week At The Airport if you want proof of this.
What’s really out there, waiting to be discovered in the unlikeliest and what at first might look like the unluckiest of ways?
I hope you’re fortunate enough to find out.
What’s your best travel delay or unexpected layover story? Tell us in the Wheel & Anchor Facebook Group!