Warburton.me

How has travelling changed?

// September 23rd, 2009 // by Andy

Our good friends over at STA Travel Buzz have recently asked the question, “how has travel changed over the last 30 years?”

As a 27 year old, I’m probably not as well placed as some to answer this question, but I can remember going abroad was a much bigger deal when I was younger, compared to now. From what I recall in the 80’s package holidays were the norm, that is hotel, flights and transfers all in one deal – usually to a limited number of destinations. These days we frequently pick and choose where we want to go, which airline we want to fly with and which hotel we want to stay with, sometimes we even stay in multiple hotels or cities just to get more variety out of our trips. Planning our own trips and taking the middle man out of the equation results in cheaper holidays for everyone, in fact, the only people that loose out are the travel agents!

Stag parties have been massively influenced by this new cheaper travel trend, with lads heading out all over the world to celebrate the demise of the groom. No longer do they meet up in a local pub and have a few beers before hitting the local nightclub, these days they jump on a flight to Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Krakow or even Vegas and hit the town there instead!

Until recently, flying around a small country like the UK was practically unheard of unless you owned a private jet, but now you can fly from one city to the next with relative ease. Birmingham to London which normally takes two to three hours on the train becomes a 30 minute hop on a plane and in some instances, costs less then going over land by rail! If that isn’t the epitome of cheap travel, I don’t know what is!

I think my fellow STA Explorer Andy Janes has possibly beaten me to this one by a long shot, but music has also become an essential part of travel. Due to the huge amounts of storage and the ability to do crazy things like watch movies and surf the net, I couldn’t imagine travel without my iPhone. Compared to days of old where you would have lugged around a Walkman and multiple discs or tapes, the convenience of the iPhone makes it seem positively prehistoric! So much functionality in one little device. It even allows me to save money on calls by using Skype from a wifi network to ring home for practically nothing! What more could you want from a device?

I can’t remember the last time I took a flight and didn’t have some form of MP3 player in my pocket – these days you can even make calls and surf the web during the flight thanks to on board phone and wifi networks!

What do you think has changed travel in the last 30 years? Feel free to share it here or on your own blogs – just don’t forget to let STA Travel Buzz know in their comments!