A Vacation From Decision

Randomness is a beautiful tool that is increasingly overlooked. We live in a time where information is ubiquitous and we can plan out every second, minute, and hour of our lives. At best, our lives are semi-predictable and at worst it is downright stressful to make even a simple choice such as where to eat dinner. It’s time we find balance.

Recently my family and I went to Charleston for a few days after Christmas and the first question that came up was; what do we want to do?

That dreadful questions which no one gives a direct answer to. “Oh, I don’t care. I’m game for anything”. All six people eventually pull out their phones, discover what the internet says about what to do in Charleston, and then tip-toe around what to do for an hour before actually deciding on anything. Its madness!

This time I wanted to try something different. What if we didn’t have to make any decisions at all? What if, and this is a big what if, what if we left it up to chance?

Isn’t the point of going on vacation to let our minds relax? If we are having to make the same amount of decisions, if not more, while on vacation versus when we are living our normal routine then why do we spend money to stress ourselves out?

I was so tired of the “what do you want to do” question, tired of making decisions, tired of sitting in our Airbnb wasting precious hours instead of being outside in 70-degree weather in the middle of winter. So I came up with an idea…

Here’s how it works:

It’s that simple and better yet it led to an absolutely amazing experience of exploring the town. The beauty of this is that we had zero expectations of what would happen. No plans for lunch, no plans for sightseeing, just pure wandering.

We ended up parking about a block away from the pin because parking was challenging downtown. Driving in we had passed a road that looked inviting so when we got out of the car we started to walk in that direction.

While my brother went into a Brooks Brothers (blah), I noticed an ally way that was bursting with green. Here it is the middle of winter and there is green everywhere! I couldn’t help myself but wander into it and see where it lead. It took us past beautiful old homes hidden away and eventually into an old church cemetery with graves dating back to the 1800’s. Charleston has this charming, creepy old vibe to it and this place exemplified it. No amount of google searching, yelp reviews, or travel guides could have convinced our whole group to go to a graveyard. It all came from the beauty of random chance.

I left graveyard feeling even more excited about traveling under random chance. Time to keep rolling the dice.

Exploring a city this way ends up being a good deal of walking and keeping an eye out for interesting things. One of those very interesting things and a cornerstone of any city culture is good food. It’s easy to drown in suggestions of where to grab a bite of food with everyone claiming to have the best seafood, be the original something-or-other, or want to charge you $18 for a bowl of grits.

There is one simple criterion for finding a place to eat; does the food look tasty? No yelpers leaving 3 stars because of their rude server, no comments on how the atmosphere was plain. If the food looks amazing, eat it.

The real beauty in a random choice is that it creates no expectation. Having high expectations of a city and then the city coming even a hair short will make it seem like those dollars spent and time-off at work were not quite worth it. Having fewer expectations of a city allowed me to enjoy it for what it is, not trying to force a predeveloped notion of what it should be like.

Reflecting back on this trip to Charleston along with other vacations has reinforced the belief that my favorite vacation experiences have come through random events. Planned activities are nice, but long-lasting memories have almost always come from things that cannot be planned.

My ask of you, dear reader, is this. Try to incorporate a bit of randomness into your next vacation. Try it just for a day or even an afternoon to discover the beauty that can come from random choices.

Happy Exploring!

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