The Best Laid Plans

I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants a lot this year. In part, this is because I didn’t want to count my chickens too soon. I wanted to give my clients (and myself) time to see if this whole working remotely from other countries thing actually works. I wanted to see if I would fall in love with a place and settle in along the way. I wanted to always give myself an exit, just in case.

And it would seem the universe agrees with a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants mindset, because every time I do try to make a plan…there’s a curveball in store. Like when I rented a place in Belgium for a month and only five days before I arrived a pipe burst, flooding the place. Instead, I ended up couch surfing/renting a spare room from one of the most amazing ladies I’ve ever met. I still ended up in Ghent, Belgium. But my time there was even better than I expected.

And then there was the time that I kept trying to find places to stay in Freiburg and things kept falling through until finally, only a week or so before I came here, I found a gorgeous fifth-floor apartment with a view of the Black Forest.

And then there was that other time that my couch surfing host in Grindelwald, Switzerland cancelled on me and instead I now get to spend three days in the Lauterbrunnen Valley (which, you may recall, is one of my favorite places on earth) and then another handful of days in lakeside Thun, a town I hadn’t even considered before my plans were turned on their heads.

With all that in mind, all plans are subject to whims, whimsy, and, apparently, pipe-bursting disasters. But, since I do have some plans, I thought I’d pause from my own travelogues and ask you for some of your stories, suggestions, and ideas. Below is my tentative itinerary:

10 days: Vacation in Switzerland (Basel, Lauterbrunnen, Zermatt, Thun)
two weeks: Visiting friends in Ghent, Belgium
one week: ? (mystery!)
10 days: Visiting a new friend in Paris and then attending a travel blogger conference in northeastern Spain (the least flexible of all my plans)

Have you been to any of the places above? Do you have a favorite view, restaurant, food item, hike, or adventure in or around these places? And where should I go for that mystery week in September? Any suggestions between Ghent and Paris? Tell me your travel stories, wish-lists, and loves!