Besides that it improved my salary, it made backpacker-like traveling much easier. Sitting on a bus from one to other town and having an hour or so downtime, I

Besides that it improved my salary, it made backpacker-like traveling much easier. Sitting on a bus from one to other town and having an hour or so downtime, I can browse, compare, and even buy my next flight ticket/room booking on the spot, without much thinking about how to get a better deal, giving the flexibility of staying at a place longer if I want. On the same note, offline maps, guide books (OsmAnd's wikivoyage integration is amazing) are at your disposal any time of the trip, so you can avoid tourist traps. Additionally, service providers also leverage "technology", advertising to and connecting with their audience through chat apps, social media. Often using online translation services to bridge the language gap. This is a combination of "technologies": mobile internet, mapping, booking services in phone apps, community-sourced content, online translators, and network effect on services like WhatsApp and Instagram. The kind of flexible traveling I am doing currently in South America couldn't have been done even 20 years ago.