I’m a OC planner on daily bases, but at 34 I can have my inner coming out and I can finally confess that I love getting lost in new cities without any reasons.
The first time that I probably get lost in a foreign city was in Downtown LA 7 years ago.
I was on vacation with some friends and I can’t explain how exactly, but it happens that I was in Hunter Street for a YouTube video shooting for a famous YouTuber with one of my friend. After the shooting (it was 4:30PM) he decided to come back home by walk because no-one of the other guys knows how to call a cab, and Uber wasn’t an app yet.
We start walking into industrial building and then, 2 hours later, we arrived to an open sewer.
Yes.
We get lost in one of the less-touristic place in one the worst recommended place in LA (after 7PM) with 5K euro of camera/lens with us without any phone connection.
Not sure how what force (and hope) took us to New China Town, from open sewer after 3 hours walking.
The only thing that I can remember is the we are safe now mochi eaten in front of the China Town main plaza.
Then there was the time in London.
It was the first time there and I was in Holborn for Google workshop with my former boss and one of my colleague. After 8 hours of training into YouTube offices, my colleague and me decided to have a walk to reach the London Parliament before a dinner with some others colleagues in Piccadilly Circus.
We haven’t had a map with us and internet connection was very expensive in a foreign country (2013) so we decided to take a few notes before leaving Google offices. Our mission was to have an easy walk near the Thames.
We start walking and get amazed by the city (it was the first time for both of us).
After 1 hour and a half walking, we realised that we probably were far away to our destination: we saw some signals for the Madame Tussauds London Museum which is at the opposite position of the Parliament *(I remembered that because I’m totally afraid of wax replicas and my mission in all the city that host this collection is to avoiding that)*So we had to walk 2 hours to reach finally the Parliament (and get lost another time before turning on the internet connection for 6 euros for 2 hours).
After several years I’ve realised that normally it takes at most 35 minutes to reach the Thames from Holborn.
Writing those word it makes me realise that I’m a liar.
I’ve been living in Milan for 16 years and I sill get lost in the centre in my own city trying to respect street signal running into the city by bike. So, I don’t only get lost in foreign cities but even in my own but it is amazing.