Travel – Then & Now. What Has & Hasn’t

Travel has changed dramatically over the past 30 years, probably much more than it has over the past two hundred years. Then & Now what evolved, what didn't?

Then posing in front of a monument was a total no-no, today your (my) face in front of the heritage site (thank you FB!) is equally if not, more important!

Smoking inside aircraft on commercial flights was perfectly normal, today you could land in jail & barred for life from flying.

Dining out was rarely on the must `to-do' list, nowadays its part of the travel experience.

Then we needed to have paper documents of all bookings we made, including flights, hotels & admission tickets. Now: what's he talking about!

When lost, we asked locals & strangers for directions; the more evolved carried maps printed on Lonely Planet Books while traveling. Today its Google Maps & no getting lost!

Then we hitch-hiked, today it's OLA & Uber Sharing!

Weather was more predictable 25 years ago than it is today. Climate Change had not yet set in. Today....well, the less said, the better.

The last two weeks of December was when fog traditionally descended on North India hampering travel plans. Today fog or smog makes its first entry around mid-October lasting until the beginning of January.

With the River Yamuna in full flow, the Taj Mahal looked complete. `Resplendent & Magical' were words that came to mind. Though the mausoleum today is Majestic as always, something seems amiss with the flow of the river now reduced to a trickle.

In those days there were more people & less vehicles, today it's just the opposite in big cities. Shhhh..., don't complain that's how some countries measure their economic progress!

Summers were often the best time for tiger safaris in most of Indian Wildlife Parks, today you need to be lucky to get a booking on a Tiger Safari (often sold out months in advance, especially during summer).

In the good old days, except for the state of Gujarat, no one heard of the word - prohibition, today many more states joined the bandwagon of states prohibiting sale or consumption of liquor. Many tourists are complaining.

Then many of India's Heritage Monuments were in pitiable condition, today many attractions are well maintained & in much better shape.

Going to bed meant sleeping on a single pillow with a clean bedsheet, off late hotels offer (of all things) a pillow-menu!

International Cuisines was unheard of in most cities of the world, today small suburbs offer you a global gourmet choice.

Our travelogues then were a minimum of 1500 words & few pictures. Today pictures tell the complete story! K.I.S.S (keep it short stupid)

Hop-on, Hop-Off tours was unheard off concept, we simply travelled by bus/train from one end to the other. If a city was small, I uncovered it on foot. Macau, Berlin (3 days), Munich (3 days) are few names that come to mind.

Semi-Nude bathing was common in quite a few Goan beaches, then; NOW - quick get me a telescope!

Then, few houses opened its doors to visitors, remember then there was no Air-bnb. Today, never mind. Every house that offers a view or is close to a railway station welcomes Holiday-Makers.

Call them `good old days' or whatever, the only beach sport we knew off was swimming, sun bathing & volleyball. Today it is para sailing over the ocean, dolphin spotting & in some instances on Indian Beaches, canoeing.

Be it La Tomatina in Spain or Pride Parade in Toronto, festivals today bring in hordes of visitors from across the globe. Today we call it experiential tourism, then it was 'co-incidental travel.'

What brought us to a destination? Newspapers, television, travel agents, most often word of mouth & for those who could afford it guide books. Today, we are spoilt for choice, thanks to promos, Facebook, Trip Advisor & prompts or reminders that keep popping up on our cell phones.

Cell phones? We often visited a STD phone booth to make calls to near & dear ones informing them we were safe. At times it meant standing in a queue. Today, the cell or handy does all this & more. How we all hate the `flight mode'? Yucks!!

Traveling money was put inside my shoes when I went on long trips. If you were mugged, no thief would probe my shoes. Kept a couple of notes in my pockets as `give-away' money. No sooner did the shoes feel comfortable, knew it was time to head home! Today we all have credit cards, PayTm, Travel Cards, except off course, Cash!

While on the road, we wanted to share costs & often stuck notes on entrance doors to Restaurants known for backpacking crowd. More often than not we found fellow travellers to accompany us on excursions. Today AI brings together travellers on a jaunt even before they themselves are aware they want to go on an excursion. The magic word today is Data Analytics.

Backpacks are replaced by strollers, though hardcore travellers on gruelling journeys still prefer backpacks.

When we returned back from our sojourn, we invited friends over & organised a slide show showing images of locations we'd just been to along with a commentary. Lasting over a couple of hours, it normally ended with lots of banter & chatter over dinner. Today it's all over FB - no need to invite anyone! Save the travel for a journey!

One thing that hasn't changed at all is the love for exploring, discovering & wandering. Let's say -`Cheers to Travel'!!

Hector Dsouza