How has travel changed this millennium?

On #20, kind of hard to “dress up like you’re going to a travel destination” when you’re now packed into a plane like a sardine. I always laugh when I see pictures of women from the fifties in their suits, hats, heels and gloves wondering how the would now manage getting from a window seat, past the middle seat and to the aisle in one piece.

The article mentioned smartphones a few times in the way it's replaced maps, in-flight entertainment, etc. but it missed the big picture that really hit me in Europe last year:

If you don't have a smartphone and Internet access, it's going to be a tougher trip than it ever was before.

I started traveling overseas in the 1990s, back when as the article said you were on a real escape, truly detached from home, and everything was on paper and you try to reserve by calling B&Bs from a public telephone by speaking the local language as best you could. But now, not only is everything digital and online, the QR code and phone apps have become the primary interface for a lot of travel chores, and paper options are disappearing. I now tell people that you could travel without using a smartphone with local Internet access, but things will go slower and you will have more delays getting what you need, while other travelers with smartphones will get things done faster, will get the reservation before you do.

I can handle it because I'm a techie and I do like a lot of the ways technology has transformed travel. But I was just shocked and a little dismayed at how so many things are now smartphone-first, including tickets for museums, buses, and trains even in less populated regions...and those dreaded restaurant menus that no one will bring you because you have to scan a QR code on your phone and wait for the Internet to bring you the menu and then you try to read it on your tiny phone screen.

I was just looking through some souvenirs of trips from 20-30 years ago and realized I used to bring home lots of cool-looking ticket stubs, phone cards, handwritten paper receipts with a charming old logo at the top, maps and brochures from sights, etc. from around the world. That's probably not going to happen again, not if no one is handing out paper any more.

Clothes on a plane: tights and a t-shirt for females, sweatpants and a hoodie for males… some people sort-of can (and irksomely do) pull they off. Some of us can’t (and/or won’t).

Smartphones … I don’t believe that “selfie” was a word in 1999. Now it’s a ubiquitous activity. Back when cameras meant rolls of film to be developed sometime after the shutter was snapped, photos tended to be one or two, and move on. Now, there are lines of people waiting to get their selfie(s) at some locations, and people doing a photo-shoot at others, taking a multitude of pictures (with Vogue-like poses), reviewing them before moving, and sometimes taking a lot more, while others wait to get their chance to see something up close, to enjoy the view that served as the backdrop for the selfie takers. Don’t get me started on selfie sticks, which came about after smartphones! Tripods were never an issue, with few bothering to carry them, and not hogging a photo op. Not everyone taking a selfie (or a quick few) is so considerate or annoying, but way too many are.

Selfie, selfish … not ironic that the words are so similar!

If you’re thinking about Europe, well low cost carriers which took off this millennium changed absolutely everything. Prior to easyJet and Ryanair it was expensive to travel. They made it cheap and they opened up new destinations as well. Nobody had heard of Ljubljana or Riga but Ryanair made them want to go there.

Trip Advisor does beat a guidebook. Hands down. The information is completely up to date. I can ask questions on the forums and people that live there can answer me. It has proved to be very helpful. It is a tool. It lists all the tours, all the museums, all the restaurants, the hotels, the tourist attractions and their websites. A guidebook is about 2 years out of date. At least. It also cannot list all those things or it would weigh a few kg.

I remember Rick’s Italy guidebook (1999)? recommended faxing properties to make a reservation!

How the travel world has changed…!

Back before technology....

To research a trip, it meant going to the Library or a bookstore to peruse guidebooks. Some countries had visitors bureaus in the US one could visit or write to for information.. It was fun to get a package full of travel brochures.

When it was time to book things, you could go to an airline ticket office but mostly you visited a travel agent to book air, hotels, trains, tours, cruises, etc. A good one had experience and lots of brochures. Everything was issued in paper.

Today, all of that can be done on a smartphone. Not a piece of paper in sight.

Before, people could escort you to the gate to say goodbye or meet you as you exited the plane. Now, at some airports, they don't even want you inside the terminal unless you are a ticketed passenger.

While cheap flights across the Atlantic have been available since the 1970's --remember People's Express--flights within Europe were very expensive. Most people stayed in a small area while on vacation and used the train. Now you can travel from one end of Europe to another by air for the cost of a fast food meal. Theoretically.

American Express offices were everywhere to help not only plan things but to get local currency. Every country had its own. Cash was king. Now, personally, I've gone to some countries and not even gotten any of the local currency thanks to credit cards and Google Pay.

What else....

Film cameras and having to wait until you got home to get the film developed to see the photos.

Smoking was rampant.

Dealing with the overseas operator to call back home and it wasn't cheap.

Needing coins for pay toilets. (Now, many take contactless credit cards.)

Not everyone you dealt with in the travel industry spoke English. Now some speak better than me.

A lot of the items reflect the thoughts of someone with an entitled background. The average guy to the writer was one who thought when airline prices were a reasonable cost when they were twice as expensive as that are today. So, his average guy had to have been a very upper income individual. I don’t fit the category; so apparently, I would not be traveling in the author's world. Same sort of ideology comes through in several comments.

There was a sea change in travel in Europe much earlier [than the low cost airline boom]. The package holiday to Spain meant that the average working class European could afford to fly somewhere by the time the 80's came around. It's different to how many people here would think of "travel", but at the same time it's pretty similar. I'm sure many people my age will remember Thomas Cook and Thompsons brochures and the travel agent in the high street being queued out the door on a Saturday.

I cannot help but recall my parents’ first trip to Europe in 1963. My brother and I, then 9 and 10, got to go, too!

Arthur Frommer’s $5 a Day. He demystified and democratized travel.

Traveler’s checks. I think this was pre Visa card.

Reservation requests via blue postal aerograms that folded up Origami-fashion.

Suitcases did not come with wheels.

I had to wear skirts and dresses.

McDonald’s, Shake Shack and Starbucks were not there…or here.

Air conditioning was rare.

World War 2 was still alive in adults’ memories.

About the only reading was picture books by M.Sasek. Blogs and You Tube and Rick Steves were far into the future.

Please add to this list!

I know that in 1973, I had the Europe on $5 a day book. As a senior in high-school, my plan was to fly Iceland Air for 100$ round trip and back-pack my way around Europe for the summer. Sadly, it didn't happen. Was only 17 and parents refused to let me go. Maybe that is why I like walking on Caminos?

Chatting with some friends today, we laughed about the old blue, onion-skin airmail stationary and how expensive phone calls were. Even in the 1980s, it cost me about 10$ to talk for 10 min. with family in the US.

The population of the world increased about 1/3 since 2000. Plenty more people who can afford to travel.

Does anyone remember the Book-a-Bed-Ahead system they had in the UK? You could stop at a TIC in one town, and "book a bed ahead" for the night in another town. They would take care of calling and set it up for you. It was really a wonderful system.

And traveler's checks, although that's something I really don't miss. Credit cards are much easier, I will say. I just remember sitting there, having to write all those numbers on a second piece of paper, just in case. That came in very handy when I lost all my traveler's checks in London on my very first trip overseas.

And of course, how could you forget sending postcards back home. I loved looking for the perfect postcard to send back to family members. Of course, then you had to find stamps and get them mailed, which could be a pain. When I was in Athens in 1997, I stopped at the local post office to buy some stamps and mail my postcards. The line was very long, and I had to wait for about 20 minutes. I finally got to the front, and just as I walked up, the clerk closed the gate down in front of me and said she was going to lunch. That's something I don't miss. 😊

Oops, forgot this: for anyone who wants to read the article, here is a gifted link: https://wapo.st/4qu53Ja

You might be asked to register your email, but if you don't want to give it away, just give them a fake one. I have several that I use for occasions just like this.

Mardee--Thank you for that link.

Reading everyone's posts was interesting. Some things I miss, others I don't (suitcases without wheels!!).

I remember my grandparents talking about their trips to Europe in the 1950's and 60's. They would have to either call or send letters to hotels to make reservations. My aunt was a paraplegic and lived with them, so they had to adjust quite a bit since ADA was not a thing back then. My aunt never made it to Venice as the bridges were not suitable for her wheelchair, so when we went she asked us to see the dueling orchestras. We went to Cafe Florian for that and it really sunk in how fortunate we were. In 1970 they took a trip around the world for 2 years. When they returned, I remember my grandmother in her baby blue suit, with matching pillbox hat and white gloves, and her matching makeup case. I can still vividly picture her in that.

I am one to not dress down for a plane ride, but I certainly don't wear my dressiest clothing. I nice pair of fitted jeans, a nice blouse or sweater, etc. IMO pajama bottoms should never be worn outside of the front door, much less on a plane. Slippers too.

I remember when I would travel cross country to visit my parents when my husband was deployed. The airports/planes always allowed my dad to come with me and help me get settled on the plane with 2 young kids. One time, the airport took us in one of those carts, and I never asked.

However, even with all of the good stuff, there are exceptions. I remember our honeymoon and we had a great travel agent, but one hotel was a bust. We had to prepay, and we left, so were out that money which was a lot at that point in our lives. The TA felt bad but all she had to go on was promotional material.

Just yesterday I was at Rick Steve's headquarters and it reminded me of when I had to go there and sit in the library to read through books and maps for our trips. I almost sat down to do that, but knew they would have to be kicking me out at closing time;).

I forgot about Travelers Checks. Don't miss them.

But let's talk Rick Steves. His first TV series on PBS was in 1991. The series was called "Travels in Europe with Rick Steves" and his company was called "Europe Through the Back Door."

No internet then so he had representatives hold seminars in different cities to present the idea of European travel, his tours, his books and his products.

I remember going to one in late 1991 or early 1992. It peaked my interest of traveling light and I bought his original "Back Door Bag." It was a convertible bag that had a completely different design to today's Carry On Convertible. It has a removable back panel pad, internal tie down straps without clips. You had to actually time them together. I believe the material was nylon and not polyester. The label says 1998. I first traveled with it to Europe in the spring of 1992.

I still have it.

It's in great shape and I'm keeping it until I get the call to donate it to the Smithsonian.

Mardee, I still send postcards everywhere I go, and consider a trip to the post office part of the experience- tho I've had many frustrating encounters similar to the one you describe!

For people who like to send postcards but don't want the hassle of finding stamps, I recommend Fizzer- it's an app you can use to make a postcard with your own photos (or greeting card, plus a few other things) and then it's printed and sent to the recipient (they are based in France so the card comes from there). I use it whenever we are travelling to places where I don't fully trust the postal system to get my postcards where they need to go.

When living in Europe some decades ago, we only used paper maps, guidebooks, and TI offices for our information. Cell phones and laptops didn't exist. Never made reservations for trains, hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, or flights. Just showed up and hoped for the best. And 99% of the time everything worked out well. Never used a credit card. Only American Express Travelers Checks. Never worried about tipping or how much to tip. It just wasn't an issue. English was not as widely spoken as now, so we were forced to learn at least a some of the language of the countries we visited. Thank you Berlitz!

When relating the above to a much younger relative recently, they asked "How did you ever manage to travel without a cell phone and apps?". My answer was "Very, very well. And, believe it or not, it was a darn sight easier". She looked at me like I was a hooker in church and just rolled her eyes.

Oh, to be young and dumb again.

Yes these days the selfie sticks and posing for your social media are very annoying.

My first partially solo trip to Europe was in the early 1990s. For part of the trip I was with friends that were travelling for a longer length of time. I must have had to go to a travel agent to book the flight and somehow get the Eurorail pass. I wanted to be sure I had enough money so I had thousands in traveller's cheques and carefully carried it and my paper plane ticket in a money belt that got very sweaty and damp. When I returned home I had about $1000 or more unused traveller's cheques. In a train station I lost or had it pick pocketed my bank card and then finding the public phone in the train station to call the number to cancel /freeze the card. Now that could be done on an app, I think.

Food on flights: On that same trip, I had a flight between Brussels and Amsterdam. The flight was about 30 minutes. They handed out the breakfast tray before we took off as the flight was so short. Best airline meal I recall - yogurt, juice, a delicious pastry, and they must have served tea coffee once we took off? Last year I had a flight to/from the west coast- Toronto= all that was served was a drink and 1 tiny cookie.

Airport security is different. In European airports in the 1980s/1990s there would be security patrolling the airport and carrying machine guns because of the terrorists group threats of the time. That was a bit unnerving. In 2000, I spent a few weeks in Europe with my parents and aunt and uncle during their longer trip to many countries. My dad dropped me off at the Vienna airport for my flight home about 1 hour before the flight left.

No more interesting paper tickets is a bit sad. I made a scrap book/photo album of my early 1990s trip and included the tickets to museums and other sites we visited.

Regarding #20, norms for dress have changed radically in the last 30 and more years for just about everything.

TC--"She looked at me like I was a hooker in church and just rolled her eyes.
Oh, to be young and dumb again." Oh my goodness, this just made my day it was so funny!

Yeah, but do young people understand that there were pay phones and phone booths just about everywhere? And probably a free reservations phone at the TI?

Internet cafes. Weren't phone cards a thing? AmEx travelers cheques, as mentioned above. Packing Kodak film and alkaline batteries for the camera.

With planes being so uncomfortable, you need to dress as comfortably as possible without being immodest or dirty.

Does anyone remember the movie: If it's Tuesday, it Must be Belgium? For me, that was how travel to Europe must have been in the 70s. I think that travel groups from many countries are like that today. The Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indian bus tours. Go, go, go. See as much as you can in 2 hours, then off to the next city.

When I came to Germany in 1986 with my Reserve unit, nothing had AC. The Frankfurt airport stunk so bad because 1000s of people were sweating so badly. We were shocked. No AC?
My grandma took me on a plane in 1961 from Cincinnati to Columbus. I was 6 years old. She wanted to make sure I flew on a plane and she had never flown. There was a bomb threat though and our flight was delayed. We got vouchers for a hot dog and a coke. Yeah, those were the days.