I used to tick things off my bucket list. One moment changed my travel

Travel has become a trophy cabinet exercise for too many of us. We gallop through the world, checking off the bucket list. Uluru, Venice, the Pyramids of Egypt, tick, tick, tick, been there, done that. I’ve done my fair share of box-ticking but an episode in New York City converted me. Late one evening, I’m wandering through the Shakespeare Garden, a subset of the city’s Central Park, and there’s an untidy man snipping flowers.

My inner-cop was aroused but as I passed by, he turned and said: “Yeah, but I haven’t got enough money to buy flowers.”

Memories not just made of sights ticked off… Shakespeare Garden, Central Park, New York City.Credit: Alamy

My heart turned around. Who were the flowers for? A friend, a lover perhaps, or just to bring something beautiful into his own life. That same trip I’d been to the Guggenheim, wandered through Tiffany & Co, had a pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Deli, but the flower cutter was the memory I took home. You can’t script moments like that. It’s serendipity, going with the flow, no expectations, just setting out and waiting to see what the world brings your way. Serendipity requires time and patience and that’s one thing seldom allowed in our busy accumulation of the must-sees, the must-dos.

It doesn’t happen everywhere. In Zurich or Kansas City the chances are slim, but Paris, London, Prague, the other great cities of Europe are made for it. The French even have a name for the aimless wanderer, a flaneur, an idle stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles without any obvious destination or reason.

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Southern Italy is the capital of the phenomenon. The spotlight shines brightest on Naples, an open-air opera, crazy, unpredictable and passionate. When I come out of the Capodimonte Museum and cross the road to a bar there are six elderly men clustered around a table like conspirators, each with a Renaissance face that I recognise from the paintings in the museum, talking about football. Another time I’ve ended up dancing with a woman in the street while a chubby, grey-haired guy sings Chella ’lla, a Neapolitan favourite from his balcony above us.

India, though, is next-level unpredictable. Step out from your hotel, and you never know whether you’ll end up in a conversation about cricket, be caught up in a wedding procession with blaring trumpets and a groom on a white horse or have to make way for a painted elephant. Next time you travel, give yourself time to stray off the beaten track. Let your wanderings become unpredictable and unpredictable things will come your way.

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