I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and my trip to Karsta in Orebro proved me gloriously right. The train from Stockholm had been dreamy, all pine forests and glassy lakes, until I realised I had left my phone charger plugged into the wall of my flat in Manchester. Not the phone itself, you understand. Just the charger. I spent the final hour of the journey doing that peculiar maths where you convince yourself that 34 percent battery will definitely last four days if you simply never look at the screen.

The taxi from Orebro station dropped me at what I thought was the address, and I stood there with my case like a lost contestant on a reality show, staring at a shed that definitely was not a holiday cottage. A woman walking her dog took pity on me. She spoke better English than I do, which was humbling, and pointed me down a lane I had somehow missed. Ten minutes later I found Karsta, tucked among birch trees with a red wooden exterior that looked exactly like the photographs I had studied obsessively for weeks.

The key was in a lockbox, and I fumbled with the code in the fading light, convinced I would be sleeping in the shed after all. But then the door opened, and the smell of pine hit me, and there was a proper Swedish kitchen with a coffee maker that looked like it meant business. I made a cup immediately, standing at the window, watching nothing but trees and the occasional deer. The silence was so complete that I actually checked my ears were working.

Without my phone to guide me, I decided to walk before dinner. This is how I discovered the first of many accidental treasures. I took what I assumed was a path back towards the lane and instead found myself at a small lake I later learned was called Lillsjon. The water was so still it looked like a mirror someone had laid flat on the earth. I sat on a rock and felt genuinely smug about my charger mishap. If I had been scrolling, I would have missed this entirely.

The next morning I got properly lost. I had intended to find the local shop I had spotted on a vague map at the cottage, and instead wandered into a forest clearing where someone had built a tiny wooden shelter with a fire pit. There was a half-burned log and a tin mug hanging from a nail, as if the previous visitor had simply stepped away for a moment. I stood there feeling like I had stumbled into a secret club I had not been invited to, but which welcomed me anyway.

I found my way back by following the smell of someone's wood smoke, which felt appropriately primitive. The shop, when I finally located it, sold excellent cinnamon buns and had a noticeboard covered in handwritten adverts for everything from kittens to chainsaw sharpening services. I bought buns and a cheap phone charger, though by then I was rather enjoying my accidental navigation.

Each day brought new unplanned discoveries. A meadow full of wild strawberries that stained my fingers red. A stream where I sat and watched dragonflies perform their elaborate hovering dances. A rocky outcrop with views across forest that seemed to stretch forever, where I ate my packed lunch and felt smug all over again about my complete lack of itinerary.

The cottage itself became part of the accidental charm. I had booked it for its practicalities, the sauna and the proper kitchen, but I fell in love with its quirks. The upstairs bedroom with its sloped ceiling that I banged my head on precisely once before learning to duck. The outdoor shower that was bracing in a way that made me feel genuinely alive, or possibly endangered. The way the light came through the birch trees in the early morning, striping everything with gold.

On my final evening, I got lost one last time. I had meant to take a short walk before dinner and found myself at a different lake altogether, larger than Lillsjon, with a small beach of smooth stones. I sat there until the mosquitoes finally drove me back, wondering how many other pockets of quiet beauty I had passed within a mile of my ordinary life without ever noticing.

I found my way back in the half-dark, no phone needed, just memory and the shape of trees against the sky. The sauna was warm when I returned, and I sat in the heat thinking about how often I let screens tell me where to go and what to see. My forgotten charger had been the greatest gift I could have given myself, though I would never admit this to anyone who had to listen to my complaints on that train.

Orebro itself, when I finally visited on my last day, was pleasant enough. The castle is impressive, the old town charming. But it was the accidental places that stayed with me, the ones found by wrong turns and dead batteries. The Sweden I will remember is the one of hidden lakes and secret fire pits, of getting gloriously, wonderfully lost and finding exactly what I needed without knowing I was looking for it.