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You don't just visit a place, you visit a time
Thursday, April 16th, 2026 02:56 pmIn a few hours I'll be on an airplane en route to Cape Town for AfrikaBurn, South Africa's regional Burning Man event. On the way back I'll be taking a couple weeks in Benelux so I can get in my Burning Man ranger training in Amsterdam and check out some old art and old crafts in the Low Countries. You can vicariously view my adventures in this shared photo album, and I'll try to post here a time or two.
My parents spent three months backpacking in Europe in 1972, and have been telling stories about the trip for over 50 years. Not only would they not be physically able to take that same trip now, many of the experiences they had are no longer available: 2020s Europe is a very different place than 1970s Europe.
As I've been preparing for this trip I've been recalling the trip Molly and I took to Guatemala and Honduras in 2009. Besides buying round-trip plane tickets and reading the Lonely Planet, we hadn't made any plans for our nine week trip. The first night we planned out a route with approximate times in each town. We'd get off the bus in a new place and walk to a LP-recommended hostel and say "Hi, we'd like a room for a few nights." Cell phones were abundant, but smartphones hadn't yet made much headway in Latin America, so everything was very face-to-face. Every week or so we'd check in at an Internet café or the shared computer in a hostel to check email and share a rambling travelogue with friends.
Fast forward a decade and a half, and travel planning is way more front-loaded. Every detail of a trip can be booked online in advance, though I've tried to only book things that I'll be very upset if I don't have, like lodging and tickets to key destinations. Today you can't just show up to the Rijksmuseum, buy a ticket, and check out the paintings. You need to book a specific time slot, several days in advance. If you're not feeling well, or it's a beautiful day and you'd rather go to the beach, too bad: you won't be able to go to the museum tomorrow. I had to put together a spreadsheet with two activities per day for two weeks in Benelux, two months in advance. I made sure to leave a couple open spots for spontaneity.
In 2009 Molly said "As long as you've got your passport and your toothbrush you're good to go." Smartphones have now become the other key travel item. Visiting a museum? Show the QR code on your phone. Need a taxi? Order an Uber on your phone. Buying food? Tap to pay on your phone. If my phone gets stolen, I'm not even sure I'll be able to find a desktop computer so I can organize a response. (This scenario is why I don't have two-factor on my GMail account: I want to go from "everything was stolen" to "I can send an email for help.") Molly and my late-20s travel instincts of carefully guarding a debit card and occasionally withdrawing cash at a secure bank ATM is going to feel awkward in Europe where websites keep telling me they don't even accept cash.
As I age, I also seem to acquire stuff that I need to carry around. In 2009 I brought a regular backpack and a hand bag of clothes; Molly just had a regular backpack. (I had a DSLR camera and socks, neither of which Molly brought.) When I packed my bags this week I discovered that my mental packing on the big suitcase was spot on, but it was way over the 50 pound limit. So now I'll be dragging three suitcases and a backpack over cobbled streets in old cities. One for camping and sleeping gear at AfrikaBurn, one for clothes and useful items, one for ham radio gear. The backpack's still got a DSLR, because even though smartphones have become our key digital items, travel photos with a proper camera body and lens just feel different.
My parents spent three months backpacking in Europe in 1972, and have been telling stories about the trip for over 50 years. Not only would they not be physically able to take that same trip now, many of the experiences they had are no longer available: 2020s Europe is a very different place than 1970s Europe.
As I've been preparing for this trip I've been recalling the trip Molly and I took to Guatemala and Honduras in 2009. Besides buying round-trip plane tickets and reading the Lonely Planet, we hadn't made any plans for our nine week trip. The first night we planned out a route with approximate times in each town. We'd get off the bus in a new place and walk to a LP-recommended hostel and say "Hi, we'd like a room for a few nights." Cell phones were abundant, but smartphones hadn't yet made much headway in Latin America, so everything was very face-to-face. Every week or so we'd check in at an Internet café or the shared computer in a hostel to check email and share a rambling travelogue with friends.
Fast forward a decade and a half, and travel planning is way more front-loaded. Every detail of a trip can be booked online in advance, though I've tried to only book things that I'll be very upset if I don't have, like lodging and tickets to key destinations. Today you can't just show up to the Rijksmuseum, buy a ticket, and check out the paintings. You need to book a specific time slot, several days in advance. If you're not feeling well, or it's a beautiful day and you'd rather go to the beach, too bad: you won't be able to go to the museum tomorrow. I had to put together a spreadsheet with two activities per day for two weeks in Benelux, two months in advance. I made sure to leave a couple open spots for spontaneity.
In 2009 Molly said "As long as you've got your passport and your toothbrush you're good to go." Smartphones have now become the other key travel item. Visiting a museum? Show the QR code on your phone. Need a taxi? Order an Uber on your phone. Buying food? Tap to pay on your phone. If my phone gets stolen, I'm not even sure I'll be able to find a desktop computer so I can organize a response. (This scenario is why I don't have two-factor on my GMail account: I want to go from "everything was stolen" to "I can send an email for help.") Molly and my late-20s travel instincts of carefully guarding a debit card and occasionally withdrawing cash at a secure bank ATM is going to feel awkward in Europe where websites keep telling me they don't even accept cash.
As I age, I also seem to acquire stuff that I need to carry around. In 2009 I brought a regular backpack and a hand bag of clothes; Molly just had a regular backpack. (I had a DSLR camera and socks, neither of which Molly brought.) When I packed my bags this week I discovered that my mental packing on the big suitcase was spot on, but it was way over the 50 pound limit. So now I'll be dragging three suitcases and a backpack over cobbled streets in old cities. One for camping and sleeping gear at AfrikaBurn, one for clothes and useful items, one for ham radio gear. The backpack's still got a DSLR, because even though smartphones have become our key digital items, travel photos with a proper camera body and lens just feel different.
