There is no good designer who doesn't know how to observe

"There is no good designer who doesn't know how to observe."

A professor said this to me at university years ago, and it stayed with me. Maybe because I have always loved watching people: sitting on a bench and watching time go by is, as my husband says, my favourite sport.

Today, in my work as a travel designer and tour leader, observing matters even more. I observe, I listen, I ask questions, and I try to understand what the people I travel with really want.

Three days without a plan

Some time ago, for example, we had a group of young Dutch women staying with us. Talking with them, I realised they had been in the area for three days and didn't know where to go to meet people like them, with the same interests.

But then I asked myself: what if not knowing anything was, in the end, a choice?

Perhaps the wish to switch off and not arrive with everything already planned. Not to have seen everything on Instagram already, read every review and built an itinerary minute by minute.

Without knowing everything beforehand.
Without having all the answers already.
Without planning every detail.

It made me think about how little room we leave for the unexpected. Because deciding not to know everything before you leave, and leaving room for surprise, is in the end a conscious choice.

Sometimes the most beautiful journey is the one that still leaves us something to discover.