The Digital World of Travel in the Palm of My Hand - Paradise Lost or Found?

If you can turn back the clock to 1993

When I was a younger (and considerably slimmer) man, I, as many people do, decided to satisfy my wanderlust by travelling the world.

I finally returned home three years later with 20 countries visited and a lifetime of memories.

In those days I relied on chunky guidebooks, random hitchhiking, paying in cash and queueing for hours for trains, planes and automobiles. You made telephone calls to book hotels, you walked in and negotiated prices. A lot of time was spent sitting in hot airless travel agents booking flights and of course a lot of time wasted spent sitting around in banks waiting and changing traveller’s cheques.

I can remember carrying around language guides, a dictionary, a tourist map and a Lonely Planet book whenever I went out for a day’s exploring.

News was word of mouth, from second hand magazines or by reading newspapers in the foyers of nice hotels. And let’s not forget “post restante” ….

Music came virtue of a small brick AKA a Sony Walkman

Fast forward to 2016

After quite a few years of planning and light hearted arguments of where to go, my wife and I decide on a long vacation to Europe, Spain in fact.

Unlike our previous four-week expedition to Europe some years before, we both had “smart” phones and unlike the last trip overseas we used them for everything.

What had changed ? Well where do I start...

·     We didn’t ever speak to a travel agent EVER

·     Research was all done online

·     Everything was booked online

·     We used digital payment methods

·     We used city maps applications

·     We used tourist guide applications

·     We used OTA applications

·     We used review applications

·     We used airline Applications

·     We used Weather applications

·     We used Food and dining applications

·     We used Language applications

·     We used Music apps

From the comfort of our hotels, in the restaurants or whilst walking or driving around, we didn’t need books, maps or anything physical apart from our phones.

Wandering around cities we visited, one thing I noticed was the declining use of the “traditional tourist paper map” and seeing other tourists like us clearly using phones to navigate around. Phones don’t tend to bend out of shape and are easier than reading a paper map.

Whilst using our hire car, there no need for a paper map or even a GPS device (eg Tom-Tom) the phone did everything required.

As usual I always asked the concierge at the hotel we were staying about some nice local places to eat out. We always got a couple of suggestions and then we researched them on line. This allowed us to make better use of our time wandering around the place where we were staying and also very often reaffirmed our own choices of venues.

The verdict

No sitting in travel agencies and no time wasted wandering around looking for hotels to stay in or queueing for tickets at museums.

Wow – how much time did we save by not getting lost all the time.

It was easy to avoid expensive and overpriced tourist traps – hooray!

Easy painless navigation around cities, whether walking or driving.

An efficient use of time - it was easy to plan walks and trips that took in a lot of great venues and eateries.

The convenience of an unlimited library of music to chose from, rather than a selction of 3 well used tapes.

Initially by embracing the awesome power of the digital world I found it brilliant, almost exhilarating on so many different levels. I felt I got so much out of my day.

On a negative though I felt that my experience seemed very sanitised, washed and filtered.

We only seldom stumbled across quiet place that were off the tourist trail, and had to force ourselves not to look at the phone for ideas.

My traveling experience and my sense of adventure seemed very bland compared to 1993.

Isn't half the fun of exploring getting a bit lost and going onto the road less travelled?

Often it is the hidden places you find when you get lost and the “fly by the seat of your pants” experiences that make a holiday memorable or enjoyable.

I've made a decision for my next trip. Every second day I think I’ll leave my phone in the hotel and get back to basics, just if for no other reason to keep it “real” and try to live a little more than I do in my digital world.

Sometimes you simply have to disconnect to reconnect...

(Oh yeah, and I didn't send one post card... me bad!)

Here are some ideas if you're interested in travelling apps

https://www.imore.com/best-apps-traveling-holidayshttps://www.imore.com/best-apps-traveling-holidays