“Is there anything that you actually don’t want to do but end up doing all the time?”
Someone asked me this question once.
“Yes. Sleeping.” I told him.
If “traveling” is represented by a line, then “accommodation” is simply a point on the line of our journey. Traveling plans are made based on how we would like to connect these points to the lines, and staying the night over at some sort of lodging facility cannot be avoided when we are traveling. If we are short of money, we can always just keep on walking and continue “traveling”, but it’s not easy to sleep outside in the rain, or on a cold day, especially at unknown places that are new. This is the same regardless of the time period we are referring to; even when poet, Basho was traveling in the past. It is definitely a lonely experience to be unable to secure a place to stay for the night and being forced to sleep outside in the rain.
It’s easy to set a destination and change plans while you travel when you are alone – it has become quite convenient to navigate at an unknown place with a smartphone in order to find a hotel to stay at even if the tourist information center is closed at night. You don’t even have to make reservations for any accommodation if you don’t mind sleeping in the car or bring a small tent along with you. However, it is quite difficult to do the same when you are traveling in a group. If there is a specific destination, the schedule will be largely defined by the flight and train times that would lead the group to the place and accommodation that is planned in the schedule beforehand. However, if we can leave room for the unexpected, it can be potentially an exciting experience to only book the outbound and inbound transportation, and then try to make reservations for the accommodation and transportation in between while making completely new plans during the journey.
