Chapter One
Before the Journey
The first city you visit is the one you invent before leaving home. It is assembled from photographs, a few recommendations, a place to sleep, a line on a screen. It is useful, and it is incomplete. If you ask it to account for every hour, there will be little room left for the actual place.
I like a plan that looks more like a doorway than a corridor. It tells me how I will arrive, where I can rest, what I most hope to see, and how I will leave. It does not try to fill all the spaces between. Those spaces belong to the city. But a loose plan is only pleasant when its foundations are firm. An uncertain entry document or an inaccessible room does not become charming because I have decided to be spontaneous.
Before dreaming up the perfect walk, consult current official information for the destination and for your own passport. The British government's foreign travel checklist, written for British travelers, names the kinds of questions that matter: entry requirements, local conditions, documents, health concerns and legal differences. Your government's guidance and the destination's official rules are the right starting points for your circumstances. A travel story written last year cannot settle a requirement that may have changed this morning.
