Twenty years ago or so, my family took a vacation to Costa Rica. We rented a car to drive to this park that we were going to visit.
We didn’t have iPhones or Google Maps or GPS. We’d never been to Costa Rica before.
What we did have, from the travel agent who helped us book the trip, was a printed-out set of instructions to get to the hotel. We were mostly traveling on two-lane roads to the park — not the kind of roads that have big signs pointing you where to go. So instead of the instructions you’d expect — “Travel 10 miles down Highway 1, take a left at Highway 17, continue on for 12 miles…” — what we got was a bit more abstract.
I remember the very first instruction vividly: We were told to drive about 15 minutes down the road and take a left at the big tree.
I was in the front seat, and my dad was driving. So as we drove, we kept an eye on the clock. 15 minutes seemed a bit unclear — did we think Costa Ricans drove faster than the speed limit or at a more average speed? (Were there speed limits?) And how big was this big tree? We drove down the road looking at each tree we spotted. Was this tree big enough? What about that one?
And eventually, some 20 or 25 minutes later, we came to a fork in the road. And there, dead ahead, was a very big tree.
We took the left.
I don’t remember how long it took to get to our destination. But I do remember being amazed that we got there at all, especially considering the directions we had. They weren’t what I was used to, but they were enough to get us there.
Point is: There are a lot of ways to get to where you want to go.
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That photo of green and red trees along the blue Costa Rican coastline was taken by Max Bender for Unsplash.