Does technology detract from a holiday experience?

[doctau]

Technology doesn't have to affect your travel if you don't let it. You can still get lost to find all of those local places, and then use your phone to find your way home.

Having recently come back from a year of backpacking, I agree with Happy Dude that in hostels you see plenty of people glued to their screens, but I found plenty of people who weren't (especially if you found the "social but not party" hostels).


I think the hard bit is keeping your tech use in check, and not sliding down the path of using it too much because it's easy. I know on our recent trip, we had to stop and tell ourselves to spend less time with it, quite a few times.

 

[Warks]

I tried to tap into my old backpacking days in Shanghai a few years ago by staying at a hostel. Gone were the friendly travellers in the communal area exchanging tips and travel stories over a beer or three. In their place were tables of one, hunched over a screen of some sort, drinking up the free wifi, completely disconnected from like-minded folk just a few feet away yet "chatting" to their FB "friends" on other continents.

On the flipside of the solitude and narcissism created by technology-driven social media, technology has certainly created smoother paths for visas, reservations, transport etc etc and you'd be hard pressed - or foolish - to avoid it. I am very much in the "wing it" camp and to me, the OP's experience with Uber etc does sound a bit less fun but maybe opened up more eating opportunities. So not all bad.

Exactly this. I backpacked all over in 1989-91 which was not far off the last era before ubiquitous internet/mobiles. It's like talking about the Great Depression to the kids but what times they were. So much came out of the random encounters due to being lost or just finding a place by chance. Some great friendships were made by just asking someone where the youth hostel was. Am still friends with people I met back then. Last year I did some hiking in NZ and spent the first night of the trip in a youth hostel with my son and his cousin (teens). It was an eye-opener to see the dependence on devices. We shared a bunk room with some guy who just lay in bed with his laptop all day and headphones on. Never spoke to him. Common rooms had a few groups of people hanging out together - they were probably travelling in a group - but the overall vibe was "my space, my device - stay away".

I really didn't like it even though it was a great hostel and the staff were brilliant. We just stayed in cabins in campgrounds after that.

BUT when travelling with the family we book everything in advance and the only times we've winged it things have gone pear-shaped very quickly. When I was young and single I was far more adaptable in this situation - slept in many strange places including building sites, railway maintenance sheds and a folk museum - but with a family you just can't do that, unless you really are hippies I guess.

I do miss the old days, but I do enjoy the new days.

 

[ermen]

I think "invasive" technology really only took off only say 5-7 years ago with the rise of the tablet and smartphone.

Even as late as 2009, I was travelling in Japan and booked everything in advance online. However, when at the destination, there was no such thing as GPS, google maps, uber, wifi and all that. So you needed to actually walk around and look around with a map or guidebook. And there weren't ATMs so I was guarding and budgeting my yen very carefully to make sure I don't run out.

So I think a happy middle is to use the internet to research and book. But once on location, try to walk around as much as possible.

 

[ermen]

BUT when travelling with the family we book everything in advance and the only times we've winged it things have gone pear-shaped very quickly. When I was young and single I was far more adaptable in this situation - slept in many strange places including building sites, railway maintenance sheds and a folk museum - but with a family you just can't do that, unless you really are hippies I guess.

Yes i think travelling with family requires some predictability. Don't think my wife will be too happy if I got the young kids to travel around on a xe om in HCMC.