The Changing World of Travel

A friend and I are going to Austria in a few weeks time, and we will be starting our trip off in Vienna. She mentioned a movie called Before Sunrise to me. I had never heard of it but apparently it was a film set in Vienna. So last night I went to her house and watched it, so that I would have a frame of reference for any such references she may make to the film whilst we're there.

I liked it, and even though it was a complete chick flick, with excessive dialogue (and a distinct lack of car chases and firearms), it reminded me of the romance of travel generally, which is something close to my heart.  But I digress. The point I am trying to get to is that we noticed the characters - with their early-to-mid-1990's style - carrying around bags, and I thought these days they would surely be wheeling around suitcases.

Suitcases... like this maybe?

When I think back to when I was a kid, in the early 90's and certainly the 80's, no-one really had suitcases like that.

People carried bags and suitcases like this:

...which had wheels if you were lucky, and even if they did, the frames were probably still quite unballanced and hard to wheel around. 

The funny thing is that the suitcases we have now haven't been around for long at all. Which made me think, so much has changed with the way we travel.

Here are some things I regularly do when planning and carrying out a holiday, that my parents could not have done in the early 90's:

• I look around for cheap flights online, using sites such as Kayak to compare prices. If I am not sure what airlines fly to an airport, I use Wikipedia to look up the airport. It will tell me which airlines fly there and where from. When I am happy with a flight, I book it. Directly. Without a travel agent.
• I book a hostel days before leaving, and I know it will be a clean, friendly and fun place, because I have read the reviews from fellow backpackers.
• I fly for relatively cheap, because of deregulation of the airline market. Competition has made for affordable fares, as have budget airlines.
• To figure out how I am going to get from the airport at an affordable price by looking up all of the transport options on Wikitravel. Whilst there, I also have a look at what the suggested things are to do in that city. It is like having a Lonely Planet guidebook for every city. Except more up to date.
• Once I get there, I email mum on my Blackberry to tell her I have arrived safely.
• I don't want to waste money on bad exchange rates at foreign exchange offices, so I just put my debit card into any ATM and withdraw through the Maestro or Visa networks. If I am travelling in Europe, I only need Euros for most of the Western part of the continent. 
• As I travel from country to country, I needn't worry about showing my passport. Most of these European countries are Schengen countries. And anyway, an EU passport gets me anywhere.
• I get snap happy and take about 500 photos in just a few days, and don't use a single roll of film. I choose the best photos out of that set. There are some really good ones. There would have to be seeing as I've taken so bloody many! After making some slight adjustments,  I upload them to Facebook for my friends and family to see and comment on instantly, rather than boring them with albums when I get home.

Those were just a few things off the top of my head. Please feel free to comment below and share your thoughts - what can you do in your travels today that you couldn't in 1990? Even more interestingly, what can you do today that you couldn't in 2000?