I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a minor disaster, and my trip to Oosterwolde in Friesland proved me absolutely right. There I was, smug as you like, having navigated the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam without a single wrong turn. Three hours of Dutch motorways and I was practically a local, I told myself. Then my phone died somewhere near Heerenveen, taking Google Maps with it. I spent twenty minutes circling what I later learned was the same village three times, waving cheerfully at the same man walking his dog each pass. By the time I found the holiday home, I had discovered a bakery, a canal I definitely should not have driven alongside, and a profound respect for paper maps.

The property itself sits in proper countryside, the kind where you can hear yourself think for the first time in years. My first evening, still smarting from my navigational humiliation, I decided to walk off the embarrassment rather than risk the car again. I set off with no plan, no phone signal, and a pair of trainers that were not remotely waterproof. Within ten minutes I had wandered into a landscape of narrow waterways and unexpected footbridges that felt almost embarrassingly picturesque, like someone had arranged it specifically to make me feel better about myself.

That first walk set the pattern for the entire week. Each morning I would set out with vague intentions, get deliberately lost, and stumble upon something I could never have planned. One afternoon I found myself on a tiny road between two fields, the sort of track that looked like it should lead nowhere useful, and discovered a farm shop selling cheese so fresh it still tasted of the morning milking. The farmer spoke better English than my Dutch, which is to say he spoke any at all, and we managed a conversation about his Friesian cattle that involved a lot of pointing and good-natured confusion.

The waterways are everywhere in this part of Friesland, and I quickly learned that following them without purpose was the surest route to unexpected pleasure. I found a bench beside a canal one grey afternoon, clearly placed there by someone who understood the value of doing absolutely nothing in particular. I sat for an hour watching a heron fish with more patience than I have ever managed in any aspect of my life. There was no signpost to this spot, no recommendation in any guidebook. It was simply where my wandering had taken me, and that made it feel like a genuine discovery rather than a checked box.

One morning I took a wrong turn on a borrowed bicycle and ended up at a tiny marina where a man was painting his boat with the kind of obsessive care usually reserved for restoring Renaissance paintings. We talked, or rather he talked and I nodded encouragingly, and he gave me directions to a cafe that served apple cake so substantial it could have qualified as structural engineering. I never would have found it following any sensible route.

By the end of the week, my phone was largely forgotten in a drawer. I had maps covered in scribbled notes and question marks, a collection of photographs of places I could not reliably find again, and a genuine affection for my own incompetence. There is something deeply satisfying about realising that your mistakes have become your best memories, that getting lost was actually getting found.

On my final evening, I walked out again with no destination in mind, crossed a bridge I had crossed twice before without noticing it, and found a small clearing where the sunset turned the flat landscape briefly golden. I stood there feeling genuinely pleased with myself, which is not a sensation I experience often, and understood exactly why I would be back. Some places you plan to visit, and some places you accidentally discover you needed all along.