What is Improvisational Travel?
Improvisational travel is a style of traveling that focuses on connecting with people and places in spontaneous and unpredictable ways. It’s a lot like creating your own adventure. When you travel improvisationally, you let go of your expectations and instead focus on being fully and consciously aware of each situation as you encounter it. That awareness provides the starting point for you to respond to the situation creatively and intuitively. Often, this results in unexpected and memorable experiences.
So what does improvisational travel actually look like?
There are lots of different ways to improvise on the road. Consciously and deliberately exploring a new place is a good start. One of the simplest ideas is to walk everywhere in a new city instead of taking public transport. You will notice so much more on foot than underground or inside a bus, and you have the perfect opportunity to pause and interact with the people and things you find. A bicycle or motorscooter is a good tool for this kind of exploring on a larger scale. Have a rough plan, but pay attention to what’s around you. When something intriguing catches your eye, follow your curiosity and see where it leads.
When you invite people to help you along the way, things get even more interesting. For example, when you’re looking for a good place to eat, try asking a local where they would go. You might even end up going together! This turns the search for food into an exciting, unpredictable experience with the potential to make a new friend. Instead of sleeping in a hotel or hostel, try couchsurfing, where your host will give you a place to crash, give you all the insider tips for a night out on the town, and maybe even invite you to a party with their friends. Staying with a stranger may be outside your comfort zone at first, but it creates a meaningful connection with the local community. Similarly, instead of taking a train or bus to your next destination, you might try using craigslist rideshare or hitchhike from a gas station. Couchsurfing and hitchhiking are both great ways to meet interesting people.
What all of these strategies, and many others, have in common is the chance to let go of your expectations, play off of the situations you encounter, and turn everyday activities into something fascinating and unpredictable — an adventure!
That means if you just go with the flow, you’ll have amazing experiences, right?
Not quite. Amazing experiences don’t just fall into your lap out of thin air. You have to actively put yourself in situations where amazing things can happen. Going with the flow and saying yes to crazy ideas is one thing, but if there aren’t any crazy ideas around, you have to create some yourself.
A typical day as an improvisational traveler might start out with walking to a famous cathedral that you read about in a guidebook. (Nothing wrong with guidebooks, by the way. It’s how you use them that counts.) On the way there, you notice a quirky art gallery and stop to look at some paintings. As you’re getting ready to leave, you overhear
some friendly tourists talking about where to eat. You chat together and join them for lunch, then part ways and visit the cathedral. On your way out, you hear a music festival in the distance and follow the sound, getting there just in time to see the last band perform. Knowing that volunteering is a good way to meet people, you help clean up after their set and get invited to go out to dinner afterwards with some of the band and crew members.
Much of this day was the result of good luck and going with the flow — finding the art gallery, meeting the people there, and hearing the sound of the music festival at the right time. But the most exciting parts — lunch with the friendly tourists, dinner with the band — didn’t happen because you got lucky. Luck was just the spark. They happened because you pushed yourself to engage that spark by initiating conversations, being friendly with strangers, and volunteering to help without being asked. Improvisational travel is all about actively making your own luck: putting yourself out there again and again, and knowing how to capitalize on opportunities when they appear.
Do you have to travel solo to be an improvisational traveler?
No, but going solo does make it a lot easier. The crucial advantage of being by yourself is that you look a lot more approachable, making it far more likely that someone interesting will start talking to you or invite you somewhere. Often, that’s all the spark you need to turn a humdrum afternoon into an adventure. And it’s a lot easier to accept that invitation and change your plans on the fly when you’re not with a group. But that certainly doesn’t mean you can’t improvise while traveling with others — it just means you have to try a bit harder. For example, you can make more of an effort to talk to locals, take your group members up on their crazy ideas, be willing to split up if your plans are different, and make a point of choosing unusual places to explore.
How come this blog is called The DIY Explorer and not The Improvisational Traveler?
It’s shorter, for one thing! But more importantly, this site is not just about improvisation and travel. It’s about having the skills and confidence to explore the world in unusual ways and create your own adventure. You don’t need to improvise, or even go anywhere, to do that. What you need is resourcefulness, independence, self-reliance — the Do-It-Yourself mindset. As a DIY Explorer, you can explore your own city, your own neighborhood, your own backyard… even your own thoughts and beliefs. This site is about getting to know the world in all kinds of ways, and doing it in a style that’s uniquely your own. You’re not just going off the beaten path, you’re creating your own path.
Why improvise at all?
It’s liberating to let go of your plans, trust chance, and just see what happens. It’s a tangible reminder that there is goodness and kindness in the world, and that strangers are often just friends you haven’t met yet. And for me, it’s a chance to learn my favorite lesson again and again: that the world is far stranger and more beautiful than I ever thought possible.
