I’m a control freak, but travelling without planning taught me a lesson

It’s 3pm and we still haven’t booked a room for the night – meanwhile, my fiance, Mak, bops along to Take it Easy by the Eagles in the driver’s seat.

As a card-carrying member of Team Type A, meticulously organised and firmly planted in the realm of control freakery, you could say spontaneity isn’t my thing. I’m the type of person to turn up to an event 20 minutes early, just in case I’m 10 minutes late. But as fate would have it, the pandemic shook up my curated world, leaving me with an unexpected prescription from my therapist: try spontaneous travel.

Choosing Scotland in February seems fitting. The roads are quiet, the peaks are powdered, and the trees are burnt orange. Our modus operandi? Plan no more than 24 hours ahead and rely on maps and brochures from Visit Scotland iCentres to guide us.

The winding roads through Scotland’s highlands, as far north as Inverness and south as Glencoe, lead us to mist-covered lochs and heather-clad hills. We roam crumbling turrets, standing sentinel over reflective glens and sheep-dotted hills – all without another soul in sight. We follow road signs to castles, take detours down dirt roads, and stop in small villages, mostly one street in size.

The idea of not having every detail planned out fills me with unease. What if we can’t find a place to stay? Will we sleep in the car? It has a big back seat. These worries gnaw at the edges of my mind, threatening to overshadow the adventure. Yet, as Mak’s excitement bubbles over, his infectious enthusiasm slowly chips away at my reservations.

One afternoon near Ben Nevis, we luck out with a last-minute room at the newly opened Ben Nevis Base Camp Hotel, and it’s a steal – although I’m certain that’s because of their soft opening. We decide to explore Glen Nevis, one of the less frequented glens. At the road’s end, we stumble upon a waterfall. A wooden bridge spans the stream, with branches reaching over it like delicate veins. The thought of the scene in autumn leaves me in awe.

There are still challenges for the impulsive traveller. Colourful villages with stone walls and cosy cafes greet us in every (major) town, but the signs hanging from B&Bs read “No Vacancy”. It isn’t our first encounter with rejection; in Edinburgh, we are turned away from a pub for lack of a reservation. Who books a pub? Even castles we stumble on are closed for the season.