No plan, no bookings: How my spontaneous travel backfired spectacularly

“A good traveller has no fixed plans…” Lao Tzu, 6th century BC, philosopher, founder of Taoism.

I’ve taken your advice, Mr Tzu, and look where it’s got me; trapped in the back seat of an airless, three-door rental Citroen at 3am in the south of France.

I believe travellers belong in three categories: over-planners, under-planners and everyone in between.

I’m the one who turns up at the airport four hours early, just in case (who knows what can happen). I’m the one who gets to the gate an hour early, just in case (who knows what can happen). So unfortunately, considering I fancy myself as the reckless type, this makes me an over-planner.

But for a wild month some time ago, I became an under-planner. I flew to Vietnam with a friend who insisted we wing our way around the country. No booked hotels, no booked flights, no booked anything. We’d go where fortune favoured us; choosing destinations last-minute after conversations with fellow travellers we met at bars and restaurants. And it worked – spectacularly. On a post-trip high, I figure I’ll do the same in France a few weeks later.

We book to fly to Biarritz on the border with Spain. This is all we plan or book. Under-planning is to be our mantra. It’s late August when we land (beyond the peak of mid-summer crowds, we figure). But Biarritz is crammed like Disneyland at Christmas. One hundred million international travellers visit France annually – yep, 100 million. And most of them, at least on that first day, seem to be in Biarritz.

No matter. We’ll leave Biarritz behind, the crowds will disperse the further we travel from it, right? But we’ll need wheels to do this. Every major car rental company operates in Biarritz. We try them all, and all the minor ones too. Eventually, we secure a 12-year-old Citroen C1 from a questionable back-street operation: a three-door hatchback in a fruity tint of purple.

Our first refuge was to be the under-the-radar surf town of Hossegor, 45 minutes up the coast. At its visitor centre I inquire about accommodation. “Please do not stay in Hossegor,” a nice woman with a friendly smile says. “Hossegor is full. There are no beds for you in Hossegor.”

So further up the coast we drive: three men, two surfboards and three bags in a car made for your grandma (provided your grandpa has his own ride). The towns of Mimizan and Arachon are full. So we buy cheap tents, and sleeping bags in Ile de Re. But the campgrounds there – and all around – have no vacancies. By Vendee, we decide to le camping sauvage as the French call it. Camping on public land is legal. “Not if it’s on or near the coast,” a friend discovers on Google. Further inland we go. To marshlands famous for birds. In the dusk now, we hear every one of them. And then it rains. Not drizzle either: this is cats-and-dogs rain. The type of downpour which makes you wonder how, or if, these marshes drain.

We leave our tents in the squelch, and pack ourselves like human sardines into our purple Citroen. I win the back seat in a high-stakes game of “paper-scissors-rock”, but it’s not nearly long enough to stretch out.

I wake, with a crick in my neck and an overwhelming desire to plan the rest of my life, not just the rest of this holiday. When I can get mobile reception, I book a week of sensible, comfortable hotels in far less fashionable parts of northern Spain, away from the coast. I book restaurants. I book us a scenic boat ride. And an e-Bike tour. I even order ahead for a coffee down the road, just in case (who knows what can happen?).