The Future of Travel

A recent article brought to light hilarious predictions of travel in the future that didn't come true.  I've made my own.  Flying to fashion, entertainment to passports, here's my crystal ball of what the future of travel could look like. ​

Transport
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I’m on a 15-hour direct flight from Sydney to Vancouver, an impossible flight twenty five years ago.   Lighter aircraft using better technology means we can fly further and cheaper than ever before.   Through the curtain a few rows up, I see business class passengers (the lucky bastards) fully reclined in their cubicles.  Comfort and on-board entertainment is leaping forward.   Perhaps one day we’ll see flying cruise ships, where it will be possible to reach anywhere in unimagined comfort.  Perhaps we’ll have floating hotels, or stopovers in the sky. New environmentally friendly fuels generate power at a fraction of the cost, as the world becomes increasingly smaller, even for us here in Economy Class.

Money
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I remember backpacking through Europe many years ago, completely bewildered by the array and diversity of currencies.   Not one to dwell on the socio-political impact of the euro (or the sinister whisperings around the so-called amero) but there’s no doubt it has made travelling easier.   A worldwide currency?   These days I use my credit card as much as I can, or withdraw local currency from global banking networks.   Imagine a world where one card carries everything you could possibly need.   Some people might argue we’re already there, but then some people should visit the developing world before making such assumptions.

Cameras
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The cameras get smaller, the memory gets bigger, the pictures get clearer.   Here’s a device that fits via a radio frequency onto the cornea of your eye.   All you have to do is blink, and a perfect HD video or high-resolution photo is recorded, and immediately sorted according to a voice command.   Virtual visual experiences, like the ones featured in the classic underrated sci-fi movie Strange Days, could take you on lifelike adventures to foreign shores without leaving your living room.   Until someone invents such a device, you’re stuck with travel writers like me. ​

Entertainment
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James Bond zips around the world, looking fantastic, carrying nothing so much as a cell phone charger, yet with a different pair of sunglasses in every destination.   Maybe Q invented a pair of sunglasses that double as video monitors, connected to a 10 terabyte harddrive the size of a pinhead.   It’s loaded with movies, TV, guidebooks, a global cellphone, e-books, GPS maps, music, photos, translators, wireless in-ear receivers and recipes for gin martinis.   James Bond doesn’t have time to go the movies, pick up a book, or carry an cellphone.   One pair of shades, and we’ve got everything we need.  Including an electronic locater, when we inevitably lose them at the backseat of a taxi.

Passports
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In our increasingly digital age, it’s almost quaint to think we travel with a little book that is absolutely essential for our safe passage.  Be it immigration officials or dodgy police officers who want to see our papers, our ID’s can instead be written in our very bodies, from our fingerprints to our retinas.   Biometric scanners should be able to tag us wherever we are, although the potential for a ruthless big brother scenario is just as probable as the potential for less hassle. ​

Security
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Our safety is of such concern that we’ve been reduced to confiscating toothpaste on airplanes, or blowing up suspicious items like someone’s forgotten shopping bag.  Unhackable E-passports should help lock down the bad guys, but if there’s a will there’s a way.   That’s why X-ray vision capable of identifying weapons and contagious illnesses will hone in on everyone getting on a bus, plane or subway (privacy advocates will ensure it is not subject to abuse.).   Meanwhile, political or environment turbulence will be analyzed information and quickly distributed by a panel of professionals, trained to avoid disseminating panic and fear.   Hey, I can dream…

Fashion
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Besides the sunglasses equipped with every gadget you can think of (the failure of Google Glasses notwithstanding), I look forward to clothes with integrated nanobots that automatically refresh, clean and kill all foreign bacteria.   Furthermore, one item of clothing will be able to change colour, shape and style depending on what you need it for.   Surely this is what our favourite superspies Bourne and Bond use.   Nanotechnology will also give us a hat that stretches into a hammock or cot, a belt that transforms into a sleeping bag, and while we’re at it, a jacket that turns into an indestructible mobile panic room, should you find yourself needing a sudden emergency exit.

The Final Frontier
Space tourism has already started, and much like tourism in its very early days, the final frontier is reserved for those of incredible wealth and means.   At some point in the future, major hotel chains will open on the moon, and Vegas-style space stations will follow.   After all, what goes on in Space, stays in Space.   The discovery that quantum physics and string theory can bend the space-time continuum will open up new planets for brave explorers, and a few months later, name-tagged package tours.   “Off the beaten track” will make way for the “off the chartered galaxy”, and expect a series of guidebooks, Lonely Universe, to shepherd budget-minded earthlings to the seven corners of the galaxy. ​