A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

The Trip Takes You

There's something quietly rebellious about this idea, especially if you're the type who color-codes travel itineraries. We usually think of journeys as things we control—we book the flights, we research the restaurants, we tick off the landmarks. But Steinbeck's suggesting something stranger: that the trip itself has a kind of agency. It's not that your plans are wasted; it's that something unpredictable inevitably happens, and that's actually where the real experience lives.

The deeper tension here is between preparation and surrender. You can't just wing it completely—you still need basic logistics—but you also can't engineer meaning. That missed connection, the stranger you sit next to, the neighborhood you wander into by accident, the weather that forces you inside a café where you think differently—these aren't deviations from the plan. They're the journey using you, shaping your perspective in ways you didn't anticipate. This applies beyond travel too. Every significant change in life—a relationship, a career shift, even recovery from something hard—follows this pattern. We think we're driving, but gradually we realize we're being driven.

The real insight isn't to abandon planning. It's to hold your plans lightly enough that you can actually notice what's actually happening to you, rather than just checking boxes.