Every new subscriber to Nomadic Spirit gets a welcome note from me. I tell them a little about what we're trying to do here and end with a question:

What's a place that has stayed with you?

I love reading the answers and try to respond to every one. The other day, I heard from Lisa P., a reader in Vermont.

Lisa had traveled to Puglia and Basilicata in May, stopping first in Matera, the ancient city in southern Italy where homes and churches were carved into limestone caves. She loved the city, but that wasn't really what her note was about.

She told me about an elderly man she met there. He invited Lisa and her companions into his cave, where one of his friends joined them. They drank wine and ate a homemade dinner. Later, he walked with them through Matera and told them stories about growing up there.

“I have traveled to many beautiful places,” Lisa wrote, “but my experience in Matera will hold a special place in my heart forever.”

I've read hundreds of answers to my question by now, and Lisa's reminded me of something I've noticed again and again.

I ask people about a place. Very often, they tell me about a person.

Some travelers get lucky

Last week we wrote about traveling like a guest. For most of human history, that came with obligations on both sides, and modern tourism turned most of it into a transaction. Lisa ended up on the old terms. She ate dinner in a cave with two people she had just met.

Certain travelers seem to have a great deal of luck. They get invited into the kitchen. Someone at the next table tells them where to go tomorrow. The guide stays after the tour ends and keeps talking. We call these things serendipity because there is no way to plan them.

After enough years on the road, you notice that some people collect far more of these stories than others. They ask questions and then listen to the answers. Someone mentions a nephew's restaurant, and they remember it an hour later. And they leave enough of the day open that an invitation has somewhere to go.

We underestimate strangers

Nicholas Epley, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has spent years studying what happens when people talk to strangers. I talked with Nick earlier this year about his book A Little More Social. What he keeps finding is that we are wrong about these conversations before we have them.

In his best-known experiment, Chicago commuters were asked either to strike up a conversation or keep to themselves. Beforehand, they expected awkwardness and assumed the other person would rather be left alone. The ones who talked had a better ride.

The same holds on the other side. For all the coverage of residents fed up with visitors, Destination BC's most recent resident survey found that 75 percent of British Columbians take pride in making visitors feel welcome.

What we bring with us

Experienced travelers may have an advantage here. Not everyone our age has it. But by this point, most of us have had decades of practice with people. We've hosted dinners and been guests at them, worked with strangers, raised families, lived next to neighbors, and sat through enough bad conversations to recognize a good one.

People open up once they can tell you're actually listening. And doing something that makes another person feel good has a way of making us feel good too, which is worth remembering the next time someone invites you somewhere you weren't going.

By then, we're no longer counting on the place to entertain us. We know we have something to put into the evening ourselves.

What Lisa couldn't have bought

A customer can buy a beautiful room, a good dinner, a private guide, and a ticket to nearly anything worth seeing. No concierge could have arranged Lisa's evening in Matera.

An elderly man had to invite her in. And she had to say yes.

By Paul M. Rand, Founder and Editor of Nomadic Spirit