(FORTUNE Magazine) – After breaking down in tears because the Antwerp restaurant of the moment was out of the appetizer I'd come so far to try, I realized it was time to burn the guidebooks and start anew. The cure? Pure, spontaneous travel.

Tipped off about the many last-minute travel agencies in the Frankfurt airport offering cheap fares and hotel packages, my husband and I packed our bags (a bikini for me and jackets to be safe, plus an epic novel in case of emergency) and asked each other, "Where do you want to go today?"

I went first, touring the stretch of counters while Peter waited outside with the bags. (For some reason they're not allowed in the area.) Confronted by hundreds of alluring options scribbled on whiteboards and printed on neon paper--Bali! Corfu! Mauritius! Ibiza! Majorca! Turkey!--I found it got daunting fast, especially considering the rock-bottom prices, such as two weeks in a four-star hotel in the Seychelles for $800. (Even worse, all the deals were described in German.)

Head spinning, I returned to my husband and let him walk the walk. Then the negotiating began. Or rather, we went up to each counter and asked where we could go. Today. That whittled things down--a few people actually laughed in our faces--but what really made it tricky was that most packages were for seven or 14 days, and my husband had to be at a meeting in Milan in five.

So down the line we went. An hour later we headed back in the opposite direction, having forgotten who'd said what--though everyone, it seemed, had something to Ibiza or Majorca, which, if the catalogs were any indication, are tourist-trap hell.

We were getting delirious. So when told we could have a four-star trip to Sri Lanka, we jumped. (Okay, so I didn't know about the insurrection.) Luckily the manager said no just as he was about to issue our tickets. After much gnashing of unbrushed teeth, we came up with four days in Sicily. With airfare, hotel, meals, and transfers, it came to $250 per person. Buon giorno! Catch A: We had to take a train to Cologne, then a cab to the airport. Catch B: You know those busloads of German tourists you see around Europe? Well, once in Sicily, there we were on one of those buses, two New Yorkers in a sea of neon track suits. (I've since learned that there are last-minute agencies in many European airports, so you can choose your companions.)

By the time we got to the hotel Plaia d'Himera at 2 A.M., we'd been traveling for 24 hours. "We could've been in Australia by now," Peter muttered before passing out on the scratchy sheets. We awoke the next morning in a hideous room in a hideous hotel and ate our stale breakfast in stunned silence. Rather than kill ourselves (or each other), we rented a car.

And so the fun began....

With a map and a credit card, we hit the road. The next three days were so unexpectedly wonderful, our wide-eyed chorus became, "You just couldn't plan this!" We stumbled on ruins in Agrigento and a breathtaking religious festival in the town of Cefalu. We took a random turn off the empty highway, wound our way up a mountain, and stopped at the first restaurant we saw, where an extended family was sharing an after-church feast. The memorable meal was $9 apiece. Afterward the chef-owner asked, "How in the world did you find this place?" We were the first Americans he'd seen in ten years.

We sipped fresh-pressed blood-orange juice and heart-pumping cappuccino at the roadside Autogrill. We fell in love with bustling Catania, where we came upon a restaurant that we're still talking about. They're still talking about us too--the food was so good, we ordered three of everything. We corkscrewed our way up Mount Etna and slalomed back down, swerving through untouristy towns too small to be on the map and past some of the most beautiful farms and forests I've ever seen.

Dinner was at a hunter's tavern, where the grandmother grilled our meat and sausages on a fire out back. Fate was once again on our side, since there were no more restaurants during the remaining four-hour drive back to the hotel. As we drove in sated silence, the intoxicating scent of orange blossoms and jasmine filled the car.

The final morning we joined the tan Teutonic group on the bus--they'd clearly spent their trip poolside. We were sad to leave but content with our new knowledge: A sense of discovery makes a vacation exponentially more rewarding, and a good map and a sense of humor will take you places you've never dreamed of. We also realized a hotel is no more than a place to brush your teeth between adventures, so finding "the best" is no longer important. (Okay, so we went straight to Milan, where we booked a suite at the Grand, but I really did learn my lesson.)

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