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Funny, just last night I re-read my diary from a bus trip to St Petersburg and Moscow as a student in 2002. Just before we left St Petersburg we heard rumours

Funny, just last night I re-read my diary from a bus trip to St Petersburg and Moscow as a student in 2002. Just before we left St Petersburg we heard rumours of the theatre siege which had just started in Moscow. A few people on the bus had studied Russian in high school so the news filtered around. Even so, we had basically no idea what was going on. Being poor students we didn't want to waste money on phone calls home, but we did find an internet cafe and wrote a quick email to say we were ok. The people at home knew more about what was going on in Moscow than we did. We navigated around by paper map (in Cyrillic) and often took wrong turns. If we split off from other groups there'd be no way to meet up again until the evening. (I don't remember anyone having a roaming mobile phone.) These days I feel vulnerable navigating in my own town without a phone, and people get worried if you aren't reachable within 30 minutes. Even though it was a very busy trip there was still time to write the diary. On later holidays with a phone and wi-fi there was a lot more to do back at the hotels and much less time was spent writing! So the big changes I've seen are in communicating home, navigating, and filling the time. I suspect the next big thing will be usable real-time voice translation, which will make things easier but take some of the fun out of things like ordering a meal and playing "guess the mystery meat!"

tushar-r 10y ago
>These days I feel vulnerable navigating in my own town without a phone, My wife and I were in Thailand in December with our cousins. My cousin sister refused to let me buy a local sim card for GPS and stuff - said it was a waste of money and preferred to use a guide map, brochures and asking people directions. You know what - it was an enjoyable vacation, despite my constant itch to check google maps. Planning to try this again for our next vacation, wherever it may be. Or on my next business trip. There is something very nice about paper maps and talking to people :-)
- et-al 10y ago
  Ever since I got a smartphone, I haven't had that feeling of uncertainty and foreignness when traveling anymore. Maybe it's also due to having enough money to afford a smartphone, and being of a certain age, but I think knowing exactly where you are means you don't check your environmental cues as much anymore. I'm inclined to go back to those never-enough-detail free tourist maps to see if that feeling of lost returns.

tushar-r 10y ago

>These days I feel vulnerable navigating in my own town without a phone, My wife and I were in Thailand in December with our cousins. My cousin sister refused to let me buy a local sim card for GPS and stuff - said it was a waste of money and preferred to use a guide map, brochures and asking people directions. You know what - it was an enjoyable vacation, despite my constant itch to check google maps. Planning to try this again for our next vacation, wherever it may be. Or on my next business trip. There is something very nice about paper maps and talking to people :-)

et-al 10y ago
Ever since I got a smartphone, I haven't had that feeling of uncertainty and foreignness when traveling anymore. Maybe it's also due to having enough money to afford a smartphone, and being of a certain age, but I think knowing exactly where you are means you don't check your environmental cues as much anymore. I'm inclined to go back to those never-enough-detail free tourist maps to see if that feeling of lost returns.