I plan most of my rides and most of the rides our club does. I'm the route planner guy around here. But sometimes I like to explore new areas. I'll lay out a general plan, but if I don't like the roads, I'll make detours. If the detours don't take me where I wanted to go, I'll use Google Maps on my phone to figure out an escape plan. When I'm riding alone from home, I'll often make it up as I go, but I already know all the roads around here, so it's not really exploring, just recombining known options.