You are right. Lot of people traveled in 20th century. But a lot more could have traveled if there was Internet in 20th century. Internet has reduced the friction to travel abroad by a lot. You know more about the world now. You can plan travel and book flight tickets, hostels and bus tickets in multiple countries by not even leaving your room from a small city in India.
> What's the difficult / tragic experience one has in a different country if they don't have constant internet access or GPS?
hmm. I think having an Instant access to Internet is like a super power. You feel more in control as well as save a lot of time. Some examples
* Finding exchanges that gives you a good rate in a new country. Lot of exchanges just rip you off and sorting by negative reviews will help you a lot.
* I think Google maps is pretty helpful especially if you are on a tight schedule. I had to get a bus late night in Budapest and had only 1 hour to reach the bus stop from hostel. I am pretty sure I could not have reached the bus stop on time if it was not for Goole maps. The maps told me that half the train track is not working because of maintainance and I have to get down at station X and start walking. There were hardly anyone in road at that time and it would have been super scary If I didnt have Google maps.
* You often need to use an App to unlock a rental bicycle. Ofcourse there are other ways to rent a bicycle but this is much more convinent and acessible.
* Need to contact emergency services but dont know/forgot the number.
>You are right. Lot of people traveled in 20th century. But a lot more could have traveled if there was Internet in 20th century.
I seriously doubt it. The main obstacle was money. Billions travelled in the 20th century up to 2005 or so. There wasn't some surge in travel associated with GPS or mobile phone availability.
Rise was steady throughout the 20th century and associated with income raise (travel becoming less expensive). The main bumps are when e.g. developing economies boomed, flooding the market with more people to travel (e.g. the raise of the 1.4 billion strong Chinese travel market).
Rarely anyone who didn't travel didn't travel because they thought "travel is too complicated, I need a constant electronic map with me", anymore that they said on in their own country.
If anything, it's today's people who can't travel without mobile/GPS, not the much more resilient people in the 20th century. In other words, it's an acquired clutch, not something people felt really lacking that prevented them from traveling abroad.
> Rarely anyone who didn't travel didn't travel because they thought "travel is too complicated, I need a constant electronic map with me", anymore that they said on in their own country.
hmm. I was referring to how the Internet made it easy to plan and book a travel. Now anyone have access to information on what it takes to travel to a foreign country. Previously it was more like a blackbox. If you are from a developing country you need to apply for visa and you have to figure all that out without an Internet. You need to goto a travel agent for information, booking etc and you need to trust the agent. You don't know anyone apart from the person in the travel channel who traveled in Eruope for fun. Internet massively reduced the barriers for people traveling record. People have access to all these information for free by sitting inside their house. Ofcourse economies booming helped but I would give the Internet some credits in this as well.
How so? People did exactly this not just for millennia, but also throughout the 20th century, and up around 2005 or so...
What's the difficult / tragic experience one has in a different country if they don't have constant internet access or GPS?