I have never been so pleased to see a petrol station in my life. There we were, crawling along the SS125 in our hire car, convinced we were about to run out of fuel somewhere between Cagliari and Costa Rei, when I spotted the green sign. My partner had insisted we could "easily make it" on half a tank. Reader, we could not. This set the tone rather nicely for a week where nothing quite went to plan, and everything turned out better for it.

The villa itself was one of those whitewashed numbers with terracotta trim, tucked down a dusty track that our sat-nav confidently announced did not exist. We overshot it twice, once ending up in someone's olive grove where a very patient dog watched us execute a seventeen-point turn. By the time we found the right gate, I was ready for a stiff drink and a lie down. Instead, I opened the boot and discovered my partner had packed approximately forty-seven pairs of shoes and no sun cream. "I thought you were bringing it," he said. I thought he was bringing it. We were both wrong.

The next morning, still slightly pink and smelling of olive oil from the one bottle we'd found in the villa kitchen, we set off to find a supermarket. This is how we got properly lost, and how the holiday truly began. We took a wrong turn somewhere near the main beach road and found ourselves on a narrow lane that grew narrower, then became gravel, then became two ruts between maquis scrub. I was all for reversing. My partner, ever the optimist, pressed on. The track deposited us in a small cove I later learned was called something unpronounceable by the locals, a curve of pale sand backed by low cliffs and absolutely nobody else. No sun loungers, no bar, no path down from any road. Just turquoise water and the distant clatter of a goat bell.

We stayed all day. Ate warm bread and pecorino we'd bought for the journey. Swam until our fingers wrinkled. It remains the best day of that holiday, and it happened entirely by accident.

This became our pattern. Deliberately vague maps, deliberately vague plans. We found a bakery in what I can only describe as a hamlet, not even a village, where the owner spoke no English and we spoke barely any Italian, but through pointing and enthusiastic nodding secured the most extraordinary pistachio biscuits. We stumbled upon a vineyard offering tastings that was not in any guidebook, simply because we followed a hand-painted sign that looked like it might lead somewhere interesting. It did. The wine was excellent. The owner was ninety-three and still climbed ladders to check his grapes.

Costa Rei's main beach is undeniably lovely, all that pale sand and shallow turquoise water. But I cannot tell you much about it. We kept meaning to spend a proper day there, kept getting diverted. A track that looked promising. A conversation with a fisherman who mentioned a good spot for sea urchins. The time we followed a family carrying picnic chairs down what appeared to be a goat path and discovered a rocky platform perfect for snorkelling.

On our final evening, we got lost again trying to find a restaurant we'd actually booked. Arrived forty minutes late, sweaty and apologetic, to find they'd given our table away. The owner, rather than turning us away, led us through his kitchen and out to a small terrace he'd never normally use, overlooking nothing in particular except scrubland and the first stars. He brought us whatever he felt like cooking. It was magnificent.

I am not someone who normally embraces uncertainty. I like a plan, a backup plan, and a spreadsheet. But Sardinia, or perhaps that particular week of wrong turns and empty tanks, shifted something. The best moments came from not knowing where we were going, from trusting that a dusty track might lead somewhere worth seeing. We ran out of petrol, ran out of sun cream, ran out of any sensible idea of where we were. And somehow, we found exactly where we needed to be.