We had barely made it off the ferry at Visby when the sat nav decided to play silly beggars. Instead of taking us straight to Tofta Gnisvaerd it sent us down a narrow gravel track that ended at a locked gate. By the time we had turned around and found the right road my husband was muttering about Swedish countryside being far too polite to have proper signposts. We finally pulled up at the little red house just as the light started to fade, and the first thing that struck me was how quiet it felt, almost like the place had been waiting for us to stop rushing.

The owners had left a note on the kitchen table suggesting we try the path behind the garden if we fancied a short walk before supper. We had planned to unpack first, but curiosity won. Five minutes later we were following a faint track through tall grass that opened onto a tiny cove none of the guidebooks had mentioned. The water was so clear we could see flat stones on the bottom, and a single wooden jetty stretched out like it belonged to nobody in particular. We stood there listening to nothing but the odd gull and the rustle of reeds, both of us laughing at how we had managed to get lost within an hour of arriving.

The next morning we tried again, this time on bikes borrowed from the shed. A wrong turn took us inland past meadows dotted with grazing sheep instead of the coastal route we had meant to follow. We ended up at a small cluster of wind-twisted pines where someone had left a simple bench facing a field of buttercups. It was the sort of spot you would never find if you stuck to the main roads, and we sat there for ages sharing the last of the cinnamon buns we had bought in Visby. I caught myself wondering how often I rush past these accidental places at home, too busy checking maps to notice what is actually around me.

By the third day we had stopped planning routes altogether. Each time we set off we simply followed whichever sandy track looked least used, and every wrong choice seemed to reward us. One afternoon we stumbled across an old stone sheepfold half hidden by juniper bushes, the kind of thing you might cycle past a hundred times and never see. Another evening we found ourselves at the edge of a shallow lagoon where the sunset turned the water pink and a heron stood so still it could have been a statue. None of these places had names on any sign, yet each felt like a private discovery.

Looking back, that first daft detour on the way from the ferry set the tone for the whole stay. Instead of ticking off sights we simply let the island show us what it wanted to. The little red house at Tofta Gnisvaerd became less a base for sightseeing and more a gentle reminder that sometimes the best moments happen when you stop trying so hard to find them.