Different Ways of Going
Ideas for Imaginative Travel
The world has long been mapped. Perhaps travellers have been mapped too — their tastes predicted and their journeys shaped by social‑media algorithms, drawing them to the same places, the same seasons, the same tours, the same selfie spots.
Here are some ideas for stepping outside the small frame the digital world gives us. These aren’t rules, but invitations — ways of travelling that resist the algorithms and return you to the world as it actually is: varied, unpredictable, and capable of wonder.
Travel off‑season, or pre‑season
Places feel different before the crowds arrive. Pre‑season you can experience a more relaxed Torres del Paine as it wakes up from winter. Spring in Cape Town offers milder weather and better value before the summer rush. Timing can transform a trip.
Look sideways, not backwards
If a place feels over‑exposed, choose somewhere adjacent. Raja Ampat instead of Bali; Folegandros instead of Santorini; Bosnia and Herzegovina instead of Dubrovnik; Djanet instead of Merzouga. The world is full of lesser‑trodden alternatives hiding in plain sight.
Go early or stay late
If you need to see the Acropolis, the Colosseum or the Taj Mahal, go at opening time. You may have the place almost to yourself. Staying late can work too, though there may always be someone with a drone at sunset on the Old Man of Storr on Skye.
Road trip
Road trips remain one of the last democratic frontiers of discovery. Draw your own line across a map, or travel with somebody who knows the country well. If you follow a classic — the NC500, for instance — detour to its wilder side.
Go on foot
“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot,” said Werner Herzog. There’s no better way to know a city than to tread its streets, meet its people, and let chance encounters shape the day. Become a flâneur or flâneuse for an afternoon.
Bin the bucket list
Few things feel more representative of our age’s cultural flattening than the “bucket list.” It’s the spontaneous moments that make travel rich, not the ones loaded with sky‑high expectations.
Put a pin in the map — literally
Memorable journeys can begin with nothing more than a finger pressed against a spot on the atlas: and a willingness to see what might happen.
Your life is not a listicle
Don’t let someone else run your trip like a sergeant major. Find your own favourite café in Cairo; leave room for originality, chance encounters and joie de vivre.
Stay where the signal fades
Bothies, cabins, and off‑grid stays can encourage you to pay a different kind of attention. To the nature around you, to the people you’re with, and to yourself.
Root yourself to one place
Get to know a neighbourhood properly. Spend an afternoon in every café on a long street and watch the comings and goings. Travel doesn’t have to be a breathless yomp through multiple tourist sites.
Turn your phone off
A big ask, but worth it. Without your phone, you’re more present in the place you’ve spent money and life‑energy to reach. Navigate with a map or a guidebook; ask a local for directions or suggestions. Experience the world without digital distraction.
Follow travellers, not influencers
Instagram still has people who travel with curiosity rather than performance. I travelled to the Algerian Sahara after following someone with deep ties to the Tuareg. One connection opened a world no listicle could show me.
Let literature be your compass
Some journeys begin long before you arrive. Trace Bashō in Tōhoku. Follow Keats through Scotland. Walk with Camus in Algiers. Follow Bruce Chatwin’s erratic line through Patagonia. Shadow Nan Shepherd in the Cairngorms. A literary journey gives you a lens, a question, a companion. Lucas Bridges’ The Uttermost Part of the Earth shaped my time in Tierra del Fuego.
Make your own pilgrimage
Take your obsessions with you: chocolate plantations in Costa Rica, jazz bars in Japan, spring blooms in the Netherlands, standing stones in England, rainforest immersion in Brazil, film locations in Scotland, land art in America. I return to Scotland regularly in an attempt to visit every whisky distillery.
Leave the tourist honeypots
Spend a few days in Marrakesh, then head into the Morocco few people see: half‑empty Saharan roads, forgotten forts, remote oasis towns, Berber hospitality. I once took a magical mystery tour of Morocco with someone who wrote the guidebook.
Stay longer than you think you need
Live somewhere for a week, a month, or longer. The more time you spend, the more a place reveals its second and third layers. Slowness builds intimacy.