Some people can hop on a plane without so much as a guidebook in their carryon bag and actually look forward to exploring a strange place without an itinerary or even knowing much about where they’re going.

I’m not like that. I’m a planner. I research and read and prepare detailed itineraries for my trips; it doesn’t matter if I’m traveling for work or pleasure. Although I don’t go so far as to schedule bathroom breaks, I have been known to map out my meals as well as how much time I think it will take to get from Point A to Point B.

But, as I’m sure you know, having an itinerary and actually sticking to it are two different things. Sometimes misfortune inserts itself between you and the next item on your schedule, whether it’s a minor mishap—like setting your alarm for 7 p.m. instead of 7 a.m.—or something major, along the lines of let’s say, the ill-advised consumption of day-old sushi at a Texas cafeteria. (I’ll spare you the details.)

And sometimes, if you’re as lucky as I was in Memphis earlier this year, what diverts you from your best laid plans is not a misfortune at all. Such was the case when I set aside two and a half hours for The National Civil Rights Museum and ended up spending more than four hours inside before staggering back out into the daylight, emotionally drained, my brain buzzing with dates and names and vividly recounted episodes from the civil rights movement.

The amount of information was overwhelming. I opted for the audio tour, but I paused my museum-issued MP3 player frequently so I could read the illustrated panels—or at least parts of the panels. There were so many facts, dates and stories, there was no way I could read it all in one visit. I didn’t even come close, and yet the hours ticked by.

I did stop to read Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” posted in front of the re-created jail cell. I also read panels about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education and the desegregation of Little Rock Central High; lunch counter sit-ins; the Freedom Summer Campaign of 1964 and the murder of three student volunteers; and the 1966 March Against Fear.

One particularly memorable exhibit is an entire 1950s-era city bus that you’re invited to climb aboard. By taking a seat behind a bus driver mannequin, you activate a recording asking you to move to the back of the bus. As you sit there, the voice becomes increasingly hostile until its shouting at you. Another exhibit I won’t forget is a vintage television set showing Fannie Lou Hamer’s emotional testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, where she argued that her alternate delegation from Mississippi should be seated at the convention instead of the all-white, segregationist group.

I also spent time watching a really well-done documentary about Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1968 assassination titled “The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306”—a very moving account of King’s death told by the Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles, who was standing near King when he was struck by a sniper’s bullet.

Although dedicated to all the men and women who fought for civil rights in America, the museum has a special relationship with the life and work of Dr. King because it includes the former Lorraine Motel, site of King’s assassination. A wreath marks the spot on the second-floor balcony where he was shot.

You can’t step out onto the balcony anymore, but after winding your way through the exhibit areas and climbing stairs to the second floor, you can approach it from within a glass-walled corridor that also allows you to peer into room 306, restored to look as it did when King stayed there. Standing so close to the spot where a man was murdered sent a chill down my spine, but add to that the scene’s aura of historical consequence and the pervading sense of moral outrage aroused by the injustice chronicled within the various exhibits, and you can imagine the mixed-up cocktail of emotions I felt as I stood there.

Apparently I wasn’t alone because a small group of Japanese visitors near me spoke to each other in somber, hushed tones. The National Civil Rights Museum packs a powerful emotional punch. I exited the main building, exhausted and assuming I was done, when I saw a gated tunnel with a guard standing outside—the doorway to the museum’s newest addition, opened in 2002. As tired as I was, I couldn’t pass it up. The tunnel is lined with images from Dr. King’s funeral and leads into a brick building that in 1968 was the boarding house where James Earl Ray stayed at the time of the assassination. You can see the bathroom window from which the shot killing Dr. King was fired.

If you’re a fan of “Law & Order” or “CSI,” then the exhibits about the capture and prosecution of James Earl Ray will fascinate you as they did me. The panels describing the various conspiracy theories, and the  commissions that investigated them are equally gripping. Your reward for reaching this part of the museum is an upbeat look at the legacy of the American civil rights movement, both in this country and abroad.

At this point I felt like I was being held hostage by my own interest in history and that I might be crossing the line between wholesome intellectual curiosity and an unhealthy obsession with seeing everything. I gave the final exhibits a cursory reading, fled into the late afternoon sunshine and made a beeline to a nearby coffeehouse for some much-needed caffeine and a chance to reflect on what I’d seen.

As I sat sipping my cup of French roast, the first thing I did was throw away the rest of my schedule for that day. Did I care? Considering I’d just had one of the most moving museum experiences ever, not in the least. To me, that kind of discovery is what traveling is all about.

What about you? What kind of attractions (or distractions) tend to lead you astray from your travel plans? Or do you even make plans?