It is funny how we now feel lost without a phone when in a new city! Back in the 90s and 00s I remember studying a paper map before embarking on a new trip, it was always fun to try and memorize the main roads of a new place!
I just travelled with my SO and another couple. Everyone on their phone, all the time. Posting to IG, looking up the "best" restaurants and attractions. It seems they can't see value in wandering and discovery. Not my kind of traveling...
I was traveling in Europe last month and met an old Canadian lady in a hostel in Berlin. She must have been in her 60s and she don't own a phone. She had a phone some years back but she left it after 4 months. She travels around with the help of maps and has been to more than 30 countries. I can personally never do this. Its hard enough traveling in a country which speaks a foreign language and has a diffrent culture. But I have very high admiration for people who can do this. I think a better alternative for folks who want to try something like this is to get a sim that has a very limited data plan so that you use the Internet only when necessary.
My (Canadian) grandfather retired early (50-ish) and travelled extensively for ~15 years with my grandmother. I'm a bit envious of their ability to do so before the modern hoards of tourists and social media.
I was a kid at the time, and they'd mail me postcards from each new place they went.
You are right. Lot of people traveled in 20th century. But a lot more could have traveled if there was Internet in 20th century. Internet has reduced the friction to travel abroad by a lot. You know more about the world now. You can plan travel and book flight tickets, hostels and bus tickets in multiple countries by not even leaving your room from a small city in India.
> What's the difficult / tragic experience one has in a different country if they don't have constant internet access or GPS?
hmm. I think having an Instant access to Internet is like a super power. You feel more in control as well as save a lot of time. Some examples
* Finding exchanges that gives you a good rate in a new country. Lot of exchanges just rip you off and sorting by negative reviews will help you a lot.
* I think Google maps is pretty helpful especially if you are on a tight schedule. I had to get a bus late night in Budapest and had only 1 hour to reach the bus stop from hostel. I am pretty sure I could not have reached the bus stop on time if it was not for Goole maps. The maps told me that half the train track is not working because of maintainance and I have to get down at station X and start walking. There were hardly anyone in road at that time and it would have been super scary If I didnt have Google maps.
* You often need to use an App to unlock a rental bicycle. Ofcourse there are other ways to rent a bicycle but this is much more convinent and acessible.
* Need to contact emergency services but dont know/forgot the number.
>You are right. Lot of people traveled in 20th century. But a lot more could have traveled if there was Internet in 20th century.
I seriously doubt it. The main obstacle was money. Billions travelled in the 20th century up to 2005 or so. There wasn't some surge in travel associated with GPS or mobile phone availability.
Rise was steady throughout the 20th century and associated with income raise (travel becoming less expensive). The main bumps are when e.g. developing economies boomed, flooding the market with more people to travel (e.g. the raise of the 1.4 billion strong Chinese travel market).
Rarely anyone who didn't travel didn't travel because they thought "travel is too complicated, I need a constant electronic map with me", anymore that they said on in their own country.
If anything, it's today's people who can't travel without mobile/GPS, not the much more resilient people in the 20th century. In other words, it's an acquired clutch, not something people felt really lacking that prevented them from traveling abroad.
> Rarely anyone who didn't travel didn't travel because they thought "travel is too complicated, I need a constant electronic map with me", anymore that they said on in their own country.
hmm. I was referring to how the Internet made it easy to plan and book a travel. Now anyone have access to information on what it takes to travel to a foreign country. Previously it was more like a blackbox. If you are from a developing country you need to apply for visa and you have to figure all that out without an Internet. You need to goto a travel agent for information, booking etc and you need to trust the agent. You don't know anyone apart from the person in the travel channel who traveled in Eruope for fun. Internet massively reduced the barriers for people traveling record. People have access to all these information for free by sitting inside their house. Ofcourse economies booming helped but I would give the Internet some credits in this as well.
I had no smartphone up until like 2012 (and even afterwards for some time I didn't have mobile data, just WiFi when available).
It's sometimes inconvenient and you may "lose" quite some time for sure (e.g. miss a train because you could not check a platform change).
But for sure you can manage reading off street signs, looking at maps and perhaps asking passers-by. Asking for directions used to be a very common superficial interaction even in the socially "coldest" countries and it is very rarely happening anymore. Asking for directions was also one of the first things you learned in a foreign language.
For timetables you can just go and check the physical timetable at the station. Buy tickets at the station. Surely less convenient, but I'm pretty sure you'd manage, just like everyone did. It was just a few years ago.
T-Mobile gives one 2g data overseas. I often just use that unless I'm staying somewhere an extended amount of time or need a local still for work tethering. It's fine. Uber is slow as hell but most apps are fine (maps, text, translate, etc.)
Your comment makes me feel old. I travelled in my early 20s ('90s-early 2000s) with no phone or internet available anywhere. There was a lot more mystery and discovery involved. You didn't know everything ahead of time. There were also a lot fewer tourists around - like, a LOT fewer. Social media and online-everything has really lowered the barrier to entry. I know this is pure r/gatekeeping but I kind of feel nostalgic for those times.
Seems a bit extreme, just make a conscious effort to not use your phone as much. That way you can still use your phone to deal with the myriad potential issues that can come up when travelling e.g. issues with your bank, stranded in the countryside, someone trying to kidnap you etc.
My phone crapped out during my first day at Oktoberferst in Germany. I figured it was the perfect excuse to "live in the real world" for the experience. I certainly did live in the real world. I also spent hours trying to find my travel buddies when we were inevitably separated.
> I also spent hours trying to find my travel buddies when we were inevitably separated.
In the old days before cell phones, it was pretty common practice to set up with friends a meeting place in advance, and a schedule to gather there every so often. Something like "at noon, we'll meet up at this tree".
My friends and family have never stopped this habit -- it's just a nice backup plan in case one of us loses or damages their phone.
I would say maybe vacation without a phone. If you are sitting on a lounge chair by a pool, I think it might be nice to force yourself to get a bit bored.
But don't travel without a phone. A smart phone, more than any other thing let's you travel further off the beaten path and have interactions with people you don't share a language or any other understanding with.
I've traveled extensively on motorcycle and there have been so many times where I'll be in the middle of a mountain in the middle of no where and the thought has popped into my head "this would be crazy if not suicidal if I didn't have the combination of maps, translate and some basic search".
Even 20 years ago, you would have needed survival and language training to do things that anybody can do today because of a smart phone.
So what happens when you’re in the middle of a mountain and your phone breaks? Or you’re in some foreign country and it gets stolen? That’s not to say that the phone doesn’t help a lot, but I think a lot of people fail to consider their backup plans should the phone become unavailable for some reason. It might be good to travel without it once or twice just to exercise those fallback options.
It's a back up. I planned my route at the beginning of the day. That alone is worth it's weight in gold even if the phone breaks or get's lost mid day. If so I'd buy an overpriced burner phone at the next town (although in years of traveling I've never just lost or broken a phone at a critical time).
I would never have made it to many of the places where I was at without a phone or at least some other GPS
Exercising backups isn’t always a good idea. Testing your UPS? Yes. Testing your emergency parachute? No. I don’t see a pressing need to test my no-phone backups, and a lot of downside.
Wasting time and money getting lost, getting separated from companions with no way to find them again, significantly reduced transportation options, having some sort of emergency and having a much tougher time dealing with it.
I have a decent amount of experience traveling internationally before the smartphone era. It was mostly fine, but with the smartphone is way better. And I had a couple of difficult unforeseen circumstances that would have been made far easier with one.
Just because my wallet could be stolen doesn't mean I am going to try traveling without a wallet.
In a lot of countries, a smart phone is necessary. It is how things are paid for, how metro schedules are shown, how tickets are scanned, it is how local taxis[1] are hailed.
When I am abroad, my phone lets me real time translate menus! I recently had a conversation with a 5 year old kid in China mediated by near-real time phone translation.
And while I'll agree knowing how to get around nature w/o a phone is a very useful skill to have, once I am back in the metro, knowing how to use a smartphone within the local ecosystem is just as much a skill for a traveler as anything else.
> When I am abroad, my phone lets me real time translate menus!
The first time I traveled abroad (years before smartphones became commonplace), my boss insisted I pay attention to every conversation, even when I didn't speak the language. It turns out, in a lot of languages, there are a lot of unexpected cognates. And you can pick up quite a few words in very little time just by listening.
You say your phone helped you carry on a conversation in a language you didn't speak, but have you tried it without the phone? It works better than you probably think. Imagine you saw your favorite movie for the first time in a foreign language. Don't you think you could figure out most of it from visuals, emotions, and context? In my experience, you can understand about 80% of a movie without speaking a word of the language. 5 year olds don't know that many words, anyway!
Also: menus? If I'm traveling somewhere where I can't read the menu, I probably don't know what any of the food is, either, so I'll eat anything. Trying new and unknown native customs is the whole point of traveling.
This all sounds to me like people who say "I need GPS or I'll never find anything!" Actually, my friends who don't use GPS got lost the first few times, but now know the city better than anyone. My friends who use GPS every time, OTOH, still don't know where anything is.
Doesn't work that well for Chinese and English. :)
> If I'm traveling somewhere where I can't read the menu, I probably don't know what any of the food is, either, so I'll eat anything. Trying new and unknown native customs is the whole point of traveling.
I mean yeah, but I want to know the general theme. I accidentally ordered Pine Nut ice cream in Mexico, it was delicious. (I expected pineapple, nope, something better!)
But even being willing to try interesting foods, I want to at least know I'll get something I can eat. I don't care if it is served with a side of stinky tofu and it is spicy enough to burn down a small forest, but there are certain foods I've tried (repeatedly!) and found out I don't like. I'll revisit them every few years and try again, but I don't want to order entrails 3x in a row by mistake.
But hey, turns out squid jerky is pretty good!
> Actually, my friends who don't use GPS got lost the first few times, but now know the city better than anyone.
Of course, but if I have to meet someone somewhere, I'll use GPS because "sorry I got lost exploring" is a crappy reason to delay someone else.
I'm more than willing to wander around places w/o GPS. But sometimes I actually need to get someplace.
Or heck, just get out of a Tokyo subway station. :) (Though some of the stations are a LOT of fun to get lost in!)
> In a lot of countries, a smart phone is necessary. It is how things are paid for, how metro schedules are shown, how tickets are scanned, it is how local taxis[1] are hailed.
It's convenient, but never necessary. I've backpacked through 40~ countries, often without a local SIM card, and was fine.
I carry two backup phones, $2000 in USD, $2000 or so in local currency, and a couple krugerrands at all times whilst traveling. I also have two iPads, and those and the three phones are all preloaded with offline maps (Guru Maps) of the country I am in as well as all neighboring countries.
That seems a bit... excessive? I'd assume you'd just need two debit cards for two different banks that offer ATM fee reimbursements, like Charles Schwab and Fidelity. Keep one in your money belt and the other in your pack that you normally keep in your hotel room. Barring some crazy sudden regional disaster, I'd expect you'd always be able to pull whatever cash you need from an ATM on any given day. Although the VISA system did go down (https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/jun/01/visa-outa...) while I was on vacation in London last year, so there's always the possibility of that, I suppose.
It really wasn't that long ago that smartphones and tablets didn't exist, and hundreds of millions of people still managed to travel by using printed maps and asking local people for directions. I think that still works?
Power outages. Natural disasters. Civil unrest. Account freezes. Erroneous government investigations. Travel fraud alerts. Big crowds that result in empty ATMs. Cell network overloads. Strong magnetic fields.
There are a million common ways that access to cash can be impeded. Carrying a small extra wallet is no inconvenience whatsoever. I’m not sure why it would count as excessive. I think it is insane and massively short sighted to rely solely on cards. I bet I could find thousands in Puerto Rico who agree.
Nevermind privacy - it’s possible I would like my real-time location and purchase history to not be reported to the USA intelligence community in real-time, occasionally. Cards do this as a matter of course.
I don’t have paper maps, and carrying offline digital copies of maps of the regions in which I intend to travel on all of my devices is quick, easy, and convenient.
Actually, I think people should travel with a burner phone that does not have any of their standard apps and logins.
Step 1: Buy a burner phone with basic capabilities (maps, etc)
Step 2: Import critical contacts from your main phone
Step 3: Share your burner number with a set of friends just in case
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit (phone-free, enjoy your vacation without distractions and without being worried)
I live in a mountainous area. Fifteen minutes from my house, there is no cell coverage. There are lots of hikers and climbers around. Why aren't there dead bodies everywhere?
I have my iPhone in my backpack for regular tasks and taking photos. Next to that I have one of those rugged Android phones from China on my handlebars for navigation.
The iPhone has my regular SIM-card, the Android phone has a local SIM-card and acts as a WiFi hotspot for the iPhone. Both phones have offline map data in various apps (TomTom, OsmAnd, Google Maps).
This way I will always have a device to call 911/112, find a hotel or a gas station.
I'm not sure what makes you think that? It's a short story that circulates on this site from time to time, about the very process you describe, how a technology goes from unimagined to perceived as necessary
The combination on word seduction which is a frequent topic of spam links and the invalid cert made me think this was some type of spam. I'll go back and read the article.
>It was a relief to not document everything. [...] Besides, how often do I look at those photos later, anyway?
That just goes to show how we're all very different. I have several thousand photos from decades of travel and I go back and look at them all the time. E.g. I recently looked at my own Notre Dame Cathedral photos after the news of the fire. Yes, there are already million photos of that church but my photos show where in particular I stood, the particular weather that day I was there, my friend with me, etc.
The one trip I forgot my camera was an 8-hour scenic drive in the Pacific Northwest. I had to resort to using the terrible low-resolution camera on a HP PDA. I don't feel "freedom" like Derek Sivers of not having a good camera on that trip; instead I keep regretting the "lost photos" I wish had.
Yes, I get the annoyance with people holding up their smartphones for photos at concerts ruining everyone's experience and the cliche of tourists posing at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And yes, there's the Japanese joke of "Did you enjoy your trip?" and the tourist responds "I don't know -- I haven't seen my photos yet."
Maybe my preferences for photos to document my trip acts as a crutch for my imperfect memory. I don't post them on Instagram or Facebook. They're just for me.
Agreed. It's hard to read this post without feeling some sort of judge-y "back in my day" kind of vibe from it. Even if this person is young, it still gives that impression.
Different strokes for different folks. If you enjoy traveling sans smart device, go for it. That will never be something I do and I don't feel bad for it one bit.
I think if you read it with more charitable glasses on, it's nicer.
There are many people who will respond to this, and think, "wow, yeah, I do spend a lot of time on my phone when I travel, instead of enjoying a new place", and might (at least) resolve to waste less time on their phone. There are others who will think, "that sounds like a cool idea; I'm going to try leaving my phone at the hotel on my next trip and see what happens", and then maybe have a cool experience.
If you don't want to do this, or already have a good handle on your phone use (so that you aren't using it to distract yourself from life), then maybe this post just isn't for you. There's no need to dump on it, or the author, for presenting a different way of doing things.
When I was in Austria a couple of years ago I had my phone but no local SIM. It was still invaluable to me:
* I took a photo of the subway map to refer to later
* I had Google Maps in offline mode, while showed my location but no/few labels. So I still got to explore and discover: “this building is an interesting shape, I’ll go check it out”
I've been really happy since de-smartphoning myself and using a Nokia 8110 4G feature phone. It has google maps and whatsapp (though I rarely use the latter), weeklong battery life and a super cool slidy thingy.
It has a screen way too small to use for browsing anything and although it has a camera I havent used it yet. I still use my old smartphone as an internet-connected mobile media device and a PC remote, but I dont carry it around with me.
Disconnecting the "phone" from "smart" has been a success.
That's interesting coming from someone who is old enough to remember how things used to be before everybody had even (dumb) mobile phones.
Unfortunately, the world has changed and it now assumes everybody has a smartphone: no phone booths, phone books, paper maps available in many places, you are often pointed to URLs for further information on anything...
You can find paper maps almost everywhere for free - in most hotels, tourist places, airports on arrival, etc (not to mention, buy one in advance).
Phone booths, there are not, true.
Not sure why you'd need phone books, on the other hand. I've never consulted one in my decades of trips, whether with a mobile or not. To call your hotel or something similar without a mobile phone (and without having jotted down the number back at home), you can always use a directory service. Also any airport has an information booth where they'll tell you.
I was hoping the article would go into how one can travel without a phone. But it's just the "look at your phone less" story (which is also true, I totally notice it myself when I'm in situations where I can't look at my phone). The issue with this is that I don't know how to get anywhere (conveniently) or find public transport connections without my phone.
I recently was in Prague for a day and mobile data wasn't working for whatever reason for me. I was able to get wifi in the train station, which let me download google and here offline maps for the city. So I was able to navigate around, but couldn't check twitter/hn etc. That worked out pretty well.
I could have also bought a paper map but who wants to deal with that?
ExactlyIn my case I always have maps downloaded with public transport data (using OsmAnd, no Google license needed), but it's not quite as good as routing with live updates. I don't know about your country, but in Aachen, Germany they drive using a "from" schedule. So if it says "line 3 to Haaren: 09:33" then that doesn't mean "at 0933" but "somewhere from 0933 onwards but definitely not sooner".
>The issue with this is that I don't know how to get anywhere (conveniently) or find public transport connections without my phone.
Almost anywhere you go, even developing world, they have all kinds of small guidebooks and maps, often given for free, with all the public transport connections. You can ask any passer by for directions (god forbid they might be wrong or difficult, and you lose some time!), take a cab, ask the bus driver, check the diagrams at the subway station, and lots of other ways...
People say it like it's some arcane magic to do so, whereas even back in 2000 or so, there were no "apps" and instant access to public transport connections, or such, and billions still managed...
Yeah, when I need to I'll bother other people. But carrying around physical schedules (which I already find hard to figure out in my own language) or holding up the driver isn't really what I'd consider convenient.
It's funny – I went on a backpacking trip when I was younger for 6 months. This was a couple years before the advent of smart phones. I travelled all over the place in super rural areas. I hitch hiked around and bought maps at gas stations and ask strangers for directions.
The only technology I had was a camera and an old iPod for music.
Now, if I go out in a new city I feel anxious without my phone – even when I'm right downtown with access to transit!
I don't think foreign places have gotten any harder to navigate. I think maybe all this technology in our pocket has made us less personable and less likely to make quick friends with a stranger for the mutual benefit of sharing information.
Funny we just came back from Japan (first time) and we thought about how lucky we are that we don't waste our little time to find our way.
There was a couple next to us on a bus with a smartphone (probably 40-50) and they asked school kids unsuccessful if that bus is going to the right direction.
I showed them my Google maps with our current location and the bus stops/route to tell them the bus is going in the right direction.
I also (even with high usage of Google maps) can remember a lot about roads and stuff. After all I still have to map the map with the real world.
I think there's definitely value in disconnecting and "living in the moment" but let's not pretend smartphones haven't improved many aspects of travel. Google Maps alone has saved me so much time and effort. Translator apps have helped me communicate outside the tourist traps. Even things like Uber have made traveling a much more pleasant experience.
So yes, I think I can do a better job of being mindful about not using my phone to say, browse twitter.
I fully admit that I may be an outlier (particularly here) on this, but I can honestly say that smartphones hadn't improved my travel experience very much.
For me there are plenty of occasions where people should really learn to put their phone away. People taking terrible photos / videos of fireworks; recording the worst imaginable quality version of their favourite song at a concert; walking in a busy train station at rush hour etc.
However I struggle to put travel in the same bucket. I'm not a huge photographer but it's still nice to have a couple of snaps to look back at. The ability to find a genuinely nice local restaurant instead of being shepherded into yet another tourist trap and everything in-between.
I do sympathise with the idea that always knowing where you are limits the freedom to get lost down some nice backstreet. However, with a little self discipline you could take the opposite view, having your phone in your pocket gives you the freedom to wander aimlessly safe in the knowledge that the best route back to your accommodation is trivial to find when you are ready to return.
I agree that people take an abundance of photos and videos that they rarely or never look at them again. I have short term memory so taking the occasional photo here and there helps bring back memories though.
I travel (for pleasure) a lot with my wife. I want to talk about phone uses besides the camera (which I think others in this thread have covered extensively). We have a
DSLR camera, and those photos IMO are much better than what phones could take at the time.
First, when we were in Japan having a phone was invaluable for transit. We used a few apps to keep track of where each attraction was relative to the subway stops and bus routes. Otherwise we would have had to carry and constantly pull out 3-5 maps.
Second, my wife likes to sleep in and I don’t. So I’ll wander the area around the hotel in the mornings, and she texts me when she’s up so we can have breakfast together.
Third, in China it was basically impossible to get a taxi the “normal” way - everyone was using local ride hailing or taxi apps. In other countries like Vietnam, using the local apps is part of experiencing the culture (we ordered takeout on Dash, and took a ride on the back of a scooter).
Finally, I carried a kindle version of two guide books. I would not have been able to do that without my phone. They were invaluable for making backup plans (ex something was closed, or we finished somewhere early and what do we do now).
There always has to be a balance - being on your phone all the time is unhealthy. But leaving the phone behind can also make it hard to function in the modern world.
I have elderly mom and grandma in my home country who have never traveled and now cannot even if I help them.
So I make photos and send them to my parent via whatsapp right there, on the spot.
And this is the closest I can bring my parents to experience what I do and see.
I can navigate without a phone and I search places to it judging by the smell and how many people are eating inside, but can't get rid of the phone because, ironically this will be selfish.
That would be a no from me. I get the spirit of the post, but with a little self-discipline you can reach the same level of 'mindfulness' and living in the moment holier than thou sentiment.
Setting aside the value of the phone when/if you lose or get your documents/wallet stolen, although I love to navigate unfamiliar places, I would like the piece of mind of having a full fledged GPS navigation feature in my pocket. If not for me then for my family's safety. Not to mention calling emergency services. I get the whole 'living in a moment' thing but we also live in reality, where shit happens. And the farther away you are from your homebase, the bigger the shit can be. It's also useful to be reachable in case for example a member of your family is in distress. It would actually be super mindful to find out one of your parents passed away while you were on your 'living in the moment' trips.
> Besides, how often do I look at those photos later, anyway?
Often, actually. I live abroad and my parents and I trade holiday photos all the time. Some of them get framed. That's not the point of the vacation, though. But I would be very sad to not have my phone with me when for example my kid would build a sandcastle.
Next up, travel without money and barter for everything!
I travelled internationally before cell phones. Maps. Guidebooks. Pay phones. I would not like to do it again.
Oh plus, your phone functions more or less like a wallet or credit card in a lot of places now. I wouldn't be able to use the suica system in Tokyo, for example, without a phone.
I don't know why, I barely document anything when I travel. maybe it's because I go to places where I can go anytime later with ease. Maybe if I travel long and rare places I would change this behavior. I think I've been in 5 european countries and I barely have pictures from these places. Having a crapy phone also helps. I only use it for Maps, ops, etc.
Ironically, I felt this way during a recent rock concert. So many of the people around us were spending more time watching the recording of the concert they were filming, or with their backs turned to the band for selfies, than they were watching the actual concert.
I mean, to each his own, but I had a lot of fun being involved in the concert. I can't imagine it being as much fun being tethered to the ground while ensuring that my video is properly framed and free of the hands.
Is there ever actually a real point to filming at concerts on your phone anyway? I've never personally had a video at one turn out that wasn't just a bunch of noise, so I don't really see the point. I also can't stand trying to search for concert videos on YouTube and all that keep popping up are crappy cell phone footage labelled ridiculously labelled as HD. Sure maybe the video looks nice, but the sound makes your ears bleed.
Agree with this idea or not, Derek is an amazing person and a great inspiration. I always appreciate his ideas and his book list is amazing. I highly recommend it.
109 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 175 ms ] threadWith tech:
- More efficient, saw more in a short amount of time.
- Easy and quick to get around due to maps, many transport options.
- Had some really good food, expensive and crowded, but good.
Without tech:
- More stressful, but a richer overall experience.
- Much less consistency with food, some good, some really bad.
- Experienced much more of the actual country, bartered with locals for rides.
- More dangerous / stressful.
Related: See FullContact's Paid Paid Vacation policy: https://www.fullcontact.com/blog/paid-paid-vacation/
I was a kid at the time, and they'd mail me postcards from each new place they went.
How so? People did exactly this not just for millennia, but also throughout the 20th century, and up around 2005 or so...
What's the difficult / tragic experience one has in a different country if they don't have constant internet access or GPS?
> What's the difficult / tragic experience one has in a different country if they don't have constant internet access or GPS?
hmm. I think having an Instant access to Internet is like a super power. You feel more in control as well as save a lot of time. Some examples
* Finding exchanges that gives you a good rate in a new country. Lot of exchanges just rip you off and sorting by negative reviews will help you a lot.
* I think Google maps is pretty helpful especially if you are on a tight schedule. I had to get a bus late night in Budapest and had only 1 hour to reach the bus stop from hostel. I am pretty sure I could not have reached the bus stop on time if it was not for Goole maps. The maps told me that half the train track is not working because of maintainance and I have to get down at station X and start walking. There were hardly anyone in road at that time and it would have been super scary If I didnt have Google maps.
* You often need to use an App to unlock a rental bicycle. Ofcourse there are other ways to rent a bicycle but this is much more convinent and acessible.
* Need to contact emergency services but dont know/forgot the number.
I seriously doubt it. The main obstacle was money. Billions travelled in the 20th century up to 2005 or so. There wasn't some surge in travel associated with GPS or mobile phone availability.
Rise was steady throughout the 20th century and associated with income raise (travel becoming less expensive). The main bumps are when e.g. developing economies boomed, flooding the market with more people to travel (e.g. the raise of the 1.4 billion strong Chinese travel market).
https://www.roccoresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/UNW...
Rarely anyone who didn't travel didn't travel because they thought "travel is too complicated, I need a constant electronic map with me", anymore that they said on in their own country.
If anything, it's today's people who can't travel without mobile/GPS, not the much more resilient people in the 20th century. In other words, it's an acquired clutch, not something people felt really lacking that prevented them from traveling abroad.
hmm. I was referring to how the Internet made it easy to plan and book a travel. Now anyone have access to information on what it takes to travel to a foreign country. Previously it was more like a blackbox. If you are from a developing country you need to apply for visa and you have to figure all that out without an Internet. You need to goto a travel agent for information, booking etc and you need to trust the agent. You don't know anyone apart from the person in the travel channel who traveled in Eruope for fun. Internet massively reduced the barriers for people traveling record. People have access to all these information for free by sitting inside their house. Ofcourse economies booming helped but I would give the Internet some credits in this as well.
It's sometimes inconvenient and you may "lose" quite some time for sure (e.g. miss a train because you could not check a platform change).
But for sure you can manage reading off street signs, looking at maps and perhaps asking passers-by. Asking for directions used to be a very common superficial interaction even in the socially "coldest" countries and it is very rarely happening anymore. Asking for directions was also one of the first things you learned in a foreign language.
For timetables you can just go and check the physical timetable at the station. Buy tickets at the station. Surely less convenient, but I'm pretty sure you'd manage, just like everyone did. It was just a few years ago.
You can have all the pros leaving your phone on the pocket without any of the drawbacks.
In the old days before cell phones, it was pretty common practice to set up with friends a meeting place in advance, and a schedule to gather there every so often. Something like "at noon, we'll meet up at this tree".
My friends and family have never stopped this habit -- it's just a nice backup plan in case one of us loses or damages their phone.
But don't travel without a phone. A smart phone, more than any other thing let's you travel further off the beaten path and have interactions with people you don't share a language or any other understanding with.
I've traveled extensively on motorcycle and there have been so many times where I'll be in the middle of a mountain in the middle of no where and the thought has popped into my head "this would be crazy if not suicidal if I didn't have the combination of maps, translate and some basic search".
Even 20 years ago, you would have needed survival and language training to do things that anybody can do today because of a smart phone.
I would never have made it to many of the places where I was at without a phone or at least some other GPS
I have a decent amount of experience traveling internationally before the smartphone era. It was mostly fine, but with the smartphone is way better. And I had a couple of difficult unforeseen circumstances that would have been made far easier with one.
In a lot of countries, a smart phone is necessary. It is how things are paid for, how metro schedules are shown, how tickets are scanned, it is how local taxis[1] are hailed.
When I am abroad, my phone lets me real time translate menus! I recently had a conversation with a 5 year old kid in China mediated by near-real time phone translation.
And while I'll agree knowing how to get around nature w/o a phone is a very useful skill to have, once I am back in the metro, knowing how to use a smartphone within the local ecosystem is just as much a skill for a traveler as anything else.
[1] Well the local Uber equivalent.
The first time I traveled abroad (years before smartphones became commonplace), my boss insisted I pay attention to every conversation, even when I didn't speak the language. It turns out, in a lot of languages, there are a lot of unexpected cognates. And you can pick up quite a few words in very little time just by listening.
You say your phone helped you carry on a conversation in a language you didn't speak, but have you tried it without the phone? It works better than you probably think. Imagine you saw your favorite movie for the first time in a foreign language. Don't you think you could figure out most of it from visuals, emotions, and context? In my experience, you can understand about 80% of a movie without speaking a word of the language. 5 year olds don't know that many words, anyway!
Also: menus? If I'm traveling somewhere where I can't read the menu, I probably don't know what any of the food is, either, so I'll eat anything. Trying new and unknown native customs is the whole point of traveling.
This all sounds to me like people who say "I need GPS or I'll never find anything!" Actually, my friends who don't use GPS got lost the first few times, but now know the city better than anyone. My friends who use GPS every time, OTOH, still don't know where anything is.
Doesn't work that well for Chinese and English. :)
> If I'm traveling somewhere where I can't read the menu, I probably don't know what any of the food is, either, so I'll eat anything. Trying new and unknown native customs is the whole point of traveling.
I mean yeah, but I want to know the general theme. I accidentally ordered Pine Nut ice cream in Mexico, it was delicious. (I expected pineapple, nope, something better!)
But even being willing to try interesting foods, I want to at least know I'll get something I can eat. I don't care if it is served with a side of stinky tofu and it is spicy enough to burn down a small forest, but there are certain foods I've tried (repeatedly!) and found out I don't like. I'll revisit them every few years and try again, but I don't want to order entrails 3x in a row by mistake.
But hey, turns out squid jerky is pretty good!
> Actually, my friends who don't use GPS got lost the first few times, but now know the city better than anyone.
Of course, but if I have to meet someone somewhere, I'll use GPS because "sorry I got lost exploring" is a crappy reason to delay someone else.
I'm more than willing to wander around places w/o GPS. But sometimes I actually need to get someplace.
Or heck, just get out of a Tokyo subway station. :) (Though some of the stations are a LOT of fun to get lost in!)
It's convenient, but never necessary. I've backpacked through 40~ countries, often without a local SIM card, and was fine.
Be prepared.
It really wasn't that long ago that smartphones and tablets didn't exist, and hundreds of millions of people still managed to travel by using printed maps and asking local people for directions. I think that still works?
There are a million common ways that access to cash can be impeded. Carrying a small extra wallet is no inconvenience whatsoever. I’m not sure why it would count as excessive. I think it is insane and massively short sighted to rely solely on cards. I bet I could find thousands in Puerto Rico who agree.
Nevermind privacy - it’s possible I would like my real-time location and purchase history to not be reported to the USA intelligence community in real-time, occasionally. Cards do this as a matter of course.
I don’t have paper maps, and carrying offline digital copies of maps of the regions in which I intend to travel on all of my devices is quick, easy, and convenient.
Step 1: Buy a burner phone with basic capabilities (maps, etc) Step 2: Import critical contacts from your main phone Step 3: Share your burner number with a set of friends just in case Step 4: ??? Step 5: Profit (phone-free, enjoy your vacation without distractions and without being worried)
The iPhone has my regular SIM-card, the Android phone has a local SIM-card and acts as a WiFi hotspot for the iPhone. Both phones have offline map data in various apps (TomTom, OsmAnd, Google Maps).
This way I will always have a device to call 911/112, find a hotel or a gas station.
https://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/GentleSeduction.html
The combination on word seduction which is a frequent topic of spam links and the invalid cert made me think this was some type of spam. I'll go back and read the article.
That just goes to show how we're all very different. I have several thousand photos from decades of travel and I go back and look at them all the time. E.g. I recently looked at my own Notre Dame Cathedral photos after the news of the fire. Yes, there are already million photos of that church but my photos show where in particular I stood, the particular weather that day I was there, my friend with me, etc.
The one trip I forgot my camera was an 8-hour scenic drive in the Pacific Northwest. I had to resort to using the terrible low-resolution camera on a HP PDA. I don't feel "freedom" like Derek Sivers of not having a good camera on that trip; instead I keep regretting the "lost photos" I wish had.
Yes, I get the annoyance with people holding up their smartphones for photos at concerts ruining everyone's experience and the cliche of tourists posing at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And yes, there's the Japanese joke of "Did you enjoy your trip?" and the tourist responds "I don't know -- I haven't seen my photos yet."
Maybe my preferences for photos to document my trip acts as a crutch for my imperfect memory. I don't post them on Instagram or Facebook. They're just for me.
Different strokes for different folks. If you enjoy traveling sans smart device, go for it. That will never be something I do and I don't feel bad for it one bit.
And there's nothing wrong with a judge-y "back in my day" kind of vibe in itself...
Some things were better "back in the day" while others are improved today...
There are many people who will respond to this, and think, "wow, yeah, I do spend a lot of time on my phone when I travel, instead of enjoying a new place", and might (at least) resolve to waste less time on their phone. There are others who will think, "that sounds like a cool idea; I'm going to try leaving my phone at the hotel on my next trip and see what happens", and then maybe have a cool experience.
If you don't want to do this, or already have a good handle on your phone use (so that you aren't using it to distract yourself from life), then maybe this post just isn't for you. There's no need to dump on it, or the author, for presenting a different way of doing things.
Most of our pictures on our walls are from our holidays together and i love them. They remind me about the nicest moments on our trips together.
* I took a photo of the subway map to refer to later
* I had Google Maps in offline mode, while showed my location but no/few labels. So I still got to explore and discover: “this building is an interesting shape, I’ll go check it out”
* My photos of course, which I also cherish
It has a screen way too small to use for browsing anything and although it has a camera I havent used it yet. I still use my old smartphone as an internet-connected mobile media device and a PC remote, but I dont carry it around with me.
Disconnecting the "phone" from "smart" has been a success.
Unfortunately, the world has changed and it now assumes everybody has a smartphone: no phone booths, phone books, paper maps available in many places, you are often pointed to URLs for further information on anything...
Phone booths, there are not, true.
Not sure why you'd need phone books, on the other hand. I've never consulted one in my decades of trips, whether with a mobile or not. To call your hotel or something similar without a mobile phone (and without having jotted down the number back at home), you can always use a directory service. Also any airport has an information booth where they'll tell you.
I could have also bought a paper map but who wants to deal with that?
Almost anywhere you go, even developing world, they have all kinds of small guidebooks and maps, often given for free, with all the public transport connections. You can ask any passer by for directions (god forbid they might be wrong or difficult, and you lose some time!), take a cab, ask the bus driver, check the diagrams at the subway station, and lots of other ways...
People say it like it's some arcane magic to do so, whereas even back in 2000 or so, there were no "apps" and instant access to public transport connections, or such, and billions still managed...
The only technology I had was a camera and an old iPod for music.
Now, if I go out in a new city I feel anxious without my phone – even when I'm right downtown with access to transit!
I don't think foreign places have gotten any harder to navigate. I think maybe all this technology in our pocket has made us less personable and less likely to make quick friends with a stranger for the mutual benefit of sharing information.
There was a couple next to us on a bus with a smartphone (probably 40-50) and they asked school kids unsuccessful if that bus is going to the right direction.
I showed them my Google maps with our current location and the bus stops/route to tell them the bus is going in the right direction.
I also (even with high usage of Google maps) can remember a lot about roads and stuff. After all I still have to map the map with the real world.
So yes, I think I can do a better job of being mindful about not using my phone to say, browse twitter.
However I struggle to put travel in the same bucket. I'm not a huge photographer but it's still nice to have a couple of snaps to look back at. The ability to find a genuinely nice local restaurant instead of being shepherded into yet another tourist trap and everything in-between.
I do sympathise with the idea that always knowing where you are limits the freedom to get lost down some nice backstreet. However, with a little self discipline you could take the opposite view, having your phone in your pocket gives you the freedom to wander aimlessly safe in the knowledge that the best route back to your accommodation is trivial to find when you are ready to return.
First, when we were in Japan having a phone was invaluable for transit. We used a few apps to keep track of where each attraction was relative to the subway stops and bus routes. Otherwise we would have had to carry and constantly pull out 3-5 maps.
Second, my wife likes to sleep in and I don’t. So I’ll wander the area around the hotel in the mornings, and she texts me when she’s up so we can have breakfast together.
Third, in China it was basically impossible to get a taxi the “normal” way - everyone was using local ride hailing or taxi apps. In other countries like Vietnam, using the local apps is part of experiencing the culture (we ordered takeout on Dash, and took a ride on the back of a scooter).
Finally, I carried a kindle version of two guide books. I would not have been able to do that without my phone. They were invaluable for making backup plans (ex something was closed, or we finished somewhere early and what do we do now).
There always has to be a balance - being on your phone all the time is unhealthy. But leaving the phone behind can also make it hard to function in the modern world.
Setting aside the value of the phone when/if you lose or get your documents/wallet stolen, although I love to navigate unfamiliar places, I would like the piece of mind of having a full fledged GPS navigation feature in my pocket. If not for me then for my family's safety. Not to mention calling emergency services. I get the whole 'living in a moment' thing but we also live in reality, where shit happens. And the farther away you are from your homebase, the bigger the shit can be. It's also useful to be reachable in case for example a member of your family is in distress. It would actually be super mindful to find out one of your parents passed away while you were on your 'living in the moment' trips.
> Besides, how often do I look at those photos later, anyway?
Often, actually. I live abroad and my parents and I trade holiday photos all the time. Some of them get framed. That's not the point of the vacation, though. But I would be very sad to not have my phone with me when for example my kid would build a sandcastle.
Next up, travel without money and barter for everything!
Oh plus, your phone functions more or less like a wallet or credit card in a lot of places now. I wouldn't be able to use the suica system in Tokyo, for example, without a phone.
Mobile FeliCa was practically unheard of in non-Japan smartphones a few years ago, and is still limited to only a few phones today.
I mean, to each his own, but I had a lot of fun being involved in the concert. I can't imagine it being as much fun being tethered to the ground while ensuring that my video is properly framed and free of the hands.