I have always believed that the best holidays are the ones where you accidentally take a wrong turn and find something brilliant. My recent trip to a Wies in Styria, Austria proved this theory beyond any doubt, though not before I had made an absolute fool of myself.

The journey from Graz Airport had been straightforward enough. I had hired a small car, loaded it with an embarrassing quantity of snacks, and set off into the rolling green landscape that Styria does so well. The directions to the Wies seemed simple on paper. Left at the church, right at the bakery, follow the stream. What could go wrong?

Everything, apparently. Somewhere between the church and the bakery, I became convinced that a narrow farm track looked "promising." It was not promising. It was a dead end leading to a very confused farmer who watched me execute a seventeen-point turn while his dog laughed at me. By the time I reversed back onto tarmac, my passenger seat had become a landslide of crisps and I had lost all dignity.

But here is the thing about getting lost in Styria. You stumble upon places no brochure would ever send you. That wrong turn led me past a tiny chapel with a crooked spire, its wooden door unlocked, its interior smelling of beeswax and old stone. I would never have found it otherwise. I sat there for ten minutes, the only sound my own breathing, feeling rather small and rather grateful for my terrible sense of direction.

When I finally reached the Wies, rattled and crunching on stray crisps, the owner greeted me with the patient smile of someone who has watched many foreigners arrive flustered. The property sat among meadows that seemed impossibly green, with forested hills rising behind it like a painted backdrop. My first evening was spent on the terrace with a glass of local Schilcher, watching the light change over countryside I had accidentally discovered.

The next morning, determined to embrace chaos, I set off without a map. I found a path behind the Wies that led into woodland so dense the sunlight came through in patches. After twenty minutes of wandering, I emerged at a clearing where an elderly woman was selling pumpkin seed oil and homemade bread from a shed that looked like it had grown there organically. We managed a conversation in broken German, heavy gestures, and mutual goodwill. Her bread was still warm. I ate the whole loaf by a stream, feeling like I had uncovered a secret.

Later that week, another wrong turn on a supposed shortcut to the nearest village delivered me to a vineyard clinging to a hillside. The winemaker, apparently delighted by unexpected company, poured samples of Zweigelt until I had to decline politely and wobble back to the car. I still have his business card, written in handwriting I cannot read.

There were other accidents. The swimming spot I found by following a local family carrying towels. The restaurant with no menu, just whatever the chef felt like cooking. The viewpoint I reached by climbing a fence I probably should not have climbed.

Each time I got lost, I found something that felt genuinely mine. Not curated, not recommended, not reviewed to death online. Just a moment of unexpected connection with a place that does not perform for tourists.

By the end of the week, I stopped checking directions entirely. The Wies became my base for glorious, unplanned wandering. I returned each evening with dirt on my shoes, oil stains on my shirt, and stories that sounded improbable even to me.

I am not saying everyone should navigate as badly as I do. But I am saying that Styria, with its hidden chapels and hillside vineyards and bread-selling sheds, rewards the wanderer. The countryside here does not shout. It waits for you to take a wrong turn, then quietly offers you something wonderful.

I left with more than I arrived with, and not just the four bottles of wine and the pumpkin seed oil. I left with the realisation that my worst habit might actually be my best travel strategy. Getting lost, it turns out, is just another way of finding what you did not know you were looking for.