I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Hald Strand in North Zealand proved me absolutely right. We had been driving up from Copenhagen, full of that smug energy you get when you have packed efficiently and left on time. The sat nav had other ideas. Somewhere near Frederiksvark it sent us down what I can only describe as a gravel path masquerading as a road, and in my misplaced confidence I followed it gleefully. Ten minutes later we were staring at a locked farm gate, surrounded by fields, with the sea visible but somehow unreachable. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The "I trusted you" look, delivered in complete silence.

I reversed badly. Very badly. There may have been a minor encounter with a hedge that I do not wish to discuss in detail. What I will say is that Danish hedges are surprisingly resilient, and rental car insurance exists for a reason.

When we finally found the actual turning for Hald Strand, down a proper lane with actual tarmac, I was ready to kiss the ground. The cottage sat among trees with the Kattegat glittering beyond, and suddenly my navigational shame felt worth it. We dumped our bags and did what any sensible person would do: wandered without purpose.

This is where North Zealand gets you. You think you are lost, and then you realise you have found something better. We walked down a path that looked like it led to someone's garden, turned out to skirt a tiny cove where a man in wellies was pulling in a dinghy. He nodded as if strangers appearing from nowhere was perfectly ordinary. The water was that particular Scandinavian blue-grey that makes you feel you have stumbled into a painting you are not qualified to be in.

The next morning I insisted on exploring without phones, which my partner accepted with the enthusiasm of someone humouring a fool. We took a coastal path that seemed to head toward Liseleje, then missed a marker and ended up somewhere else entirely. A clearing with a bench facing the sea, no name, no sign explaining its significance. Just a spot where someone had decided the view deserved recognition. We sat there for an hour. A red squirrel watched us with what I choose to believe was approval.

The real discovery came when I popped into a village shop for milk and got talking to the woman behind the counter, who directed me to a bakery that does not appear on any map I have found since. Down a lane, past a house with an aggressive goose, in what looked like someone's converted garage. The bread was still warm. I bought three loaves and ate most of one in the car park, tearing pieces off like a seagull.

Hald Strand itself became our base for deliberate getting-lost. The cottage had that satisfying Nordic simplicity, all wood and light and a kitchen that made me want to cook things involving dill. But the pleasure was in heading out with rough intentions and seeing where the afternoon took us. A churchyard we found by following a path that narrowed until it almost disappeared. A beach where the stones made a particular sound underfoot, different from anywhere else we walked. A field of rye that caught the evening light so perfectly I took seventeen identical photographs, none of which captured it.

I am not someone who normally embraces uncertainty. I like plans, confirmations, knowing where the nearest toilet is. But there was something about that stretch of Danish coast that loosened something in me, or perhaps the initial sat nav humiliation had broken my pride sufficiently to allow improvisation. We found places I cannot name and would struggle to find again, which feels exactly right. Some experiences should resist being pinned down.

On our last evening we walked back to that first accidental cove. The man in wellies was there again, or perhaps a different man in wellies, the universal uniform of the Danish coast. He did not acknowledge us, and we did not acknowledge him. Three humans who had each found our way to the same unmarked spot, none of us entirely sure how, all of us exactly where we needed to be.