Holiday Out Of A Box.

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*Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from food and travel blogger Caitlin Galer-Unti, of  The Vegan Word. We fell in love with her style of travel in this story and we’re really excited when she agreed to publish it on our site. For more information about Caitlin, check out her author bio at the end of this post.

A few months ago I took the decision to let fate (and a few slips of paper) decide where I would travel next.

Since moving to London a few years ago, I’ve been meaning to travel around Europe, especially Eastern and Northern Europe (I’ve already been to much of Western Europe).  However, in addition to concerns over time and money, I couldn’t decide where to go — there are too many places I want to see.  So I decided the most sensible decision (by sensible, I mean slightly crazy) would be to write down all the cities I want to visit on slips of paper and put them all in box.

My friends thought it was an interesting idea (and by interesting, I mean slightly crazy but ultimately exciting), which made me think — what if I allowed it to be a group effort?  So, I let people submit cities that they thought I should visit.  After I’d compiled a healthy collection of slips, I put them all in a box and let chance decide where I’d go. I drew Riga.

The only thing that came to mind was a hazy memory that floated to the surface: The Treaty of Riga.  I knew I’d heard the term in some history class ages ago but I couldn’t even remember what it was.  I immediately googled Riga and after browsing through some pictures and reading a brief description, decided I wanted to go.  When I looked up tickets, however, they were prohibitively expensive. I kept looking for a few weeks, but they were always expensive, and I forgot about Riga for awhile.

Then, a couple of months after my holiday box drawing, I was looking up flight tickets for the following weekend.  I sorted them by price, and discovered that the cheapest tickets were to Riga.  I jumped on the opportunity to go to the city I’d drawn from the box, and immediately booked a plane ticket on WizzAir (which sounded slightly dodgy) and a room at the Naughty Squirrel hostel (which sounded very dodgy).  A week later I landed to discover a city full of beautiful Art Nouveau architecture, old wooden houses, friendly people and a lovely (not dodgy!) hostel.

I had few expectations when I arrived in Riga.  I knew nearly nothing about the city (the day before I left London someone asked me what currency they use in Latvia and I realized I didn’t know), or what the ‘must-see’ sights are.  More organized travellers would probably balk at my lack of preparation, but I am not a big fan of planning anyway and I enjoyed the experience of landing in a city full of endless possibilities and just taking whatever came my way.  So much of travelling is openness to new experience, and I felt that being completely uncertain of what to expect only heightened my sense of openness.

Just because I was unprepared and hadn’t researched Riga doesn’t mean I ended up not knowing what to do.  The staff at my hostel were extremely helpful, pointing out the ‘must-see’ sights on the map for me.  I spent most of my time wandering around Riga, following my whims and seeing where I ended up.  I saw few of the ‘must-sees’ in the Old Town — I didn’t even explore the Old Town until my final day, and when I had a look around I realised that while it’s beautiful (it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site) it felt overcrowded with tourists.  Instead, I spent a lot of time looking at fantastic old wooden houses and Art Nouveau architecture around the downtown area just outside the Old Town.  I saw few tourists in many of the sections of Riga I ended up in (in fact, a couple of times when I stopped to take pictures of interesting houses the owners came outside and stared at me).

While I was in Riga I kept hearing great things about Tallinn, Estonia, and started to feel the siren call of travel (yes, I get itchy feet even when I’m already on a trip!).  However, I realised that I’d like to take another “unplanned” trip.  So bye, Tallinn tickets, and hello again, holiday box drawing!  Sometimes not planning a trip is the best thing you can do…

Author Bio: Caitlin is an avid traveller, cook and coffee aficionado and blogs (about vegan food, travel and more) at The Vegan Word (http://www.theveganworld.com).

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*Please remember all photos on this website, unless otherwise noted, are copyrighted and property of Beers and Beans Travel Website, Nariko’ s Nest Weddings & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you do want to use one of them please contact me first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!