Travel in the Digital Age

Yesterday I got back from a big vacation (Greece & Turkey. Santorini really is as stunning as pictures show it to be). When I got home I noticed that there just seemed to be a lot of clutter in the apartment, stuff slowly building up over the years, so it was time for a spring cleaning (well, it's summer but you get the idea).

Cleaning a bookshelf I found tons and tons of papers from previous travels. Maps, transit information, pamphlets that they give out at various attractions, just tons of vacation stuff. It made me reflect on why did I bother saving all of this? I chucked it out of course but I figure that I kept it because I was being old school and thinking I might need it again if I ever visited those places.

Thanks to the internet age how people travel has really changed. Papers maps? Use Google maps or other mapping apps. Need info on a place? Wiki or the attraction's website. Plane tickets? Just show them the confirmation email on your phone. What do you want to do tonight? There'll be tons of tourism websites, reviews, nearby restaurant listings, and sites with up-to-date events happening in the city. Heck, use your phone to buy tickets to the show you just found online. It's almost quaint to have guidebooks and printed items with you these days. Not that I'm entirely digital -- I still pre-print hotel reservations and things like that just in case something happens to my smartphone, but there's really not much of a need to carry books and papers with you when wandering around seeing the sights.

I'm old enough to remember travellers' cheques. Do those even exist anymore?

So out they went. The maps, pamphlets, guidebooks, all of it. I'll try to break the habit of keeping stuff like that with me. It'll save paper as well, one of the great benefits of digital technology. Maybe 10 years from now we'll find reading a physical newspaper or magazine to be 'old school'.


I'll still print tickets and reservations though.