The Changed Expectations of Digital Vacations
July 2, 2009 :: Joe LoongI’ve never been very good at taking vacations, so this is more of a theoretical exercise for me than anything else, but I was thinking about different ways our expectations of vacation have changed because of this whole online thing.
I’m not talking about the prosaic stuff like being able to make your own reservations and book your own flights. (Which, let’s face it, can be a burden — sometimes I miss having a travel agent in the loop, which made vacation planning a kind of “fire and forget” experience. Although no one misses the added cost.)
I mean stuff like:
* We expect to know more about our vacations: Not only are we setting our own itineraries, but we know (or think we know) everything there is to know about the travel advisories, insiders’ scoop, locals’ perspective, expat worldview, histories, backstories, and ratings for everything and everyone… user-generated, crowdsourced, and group-moderated, more or less in realtime.
Yes, previously we had our guidebooks of choice (the best of which were only slightly out of date), but now we have the breadth, if not depth, of travel information in which to drown.
* We expect we might actually know people at our destination: Because of the broad geographic reach of our online social networks, it’s possible that we could send up an online flare, search our networks, and come back with people in the area with whom to meet up with. (Alternately, we can plan our itineraries to incorporate some real-world visits to online friends.) Or, we can take advantage of our networks by casting about for advice, or even find couches to crash on or apartments to swap.
* We take our friends with us on vacation: Not content to send a few postcards and flip through photo albums afterward while handing out souvenirs, we try to include our friends at home by posting status updates, photo albums, and other artifacts of our vacations, while at the same time, we try to keep up with events at home. (One hopes at a reduced rate — there’s still a role for peer pressure, in the form of “You’re on vacation, dumbass, get off of Facebook and do something, already!”)
* Consequently, we never fully go on vacation: Much has been written about how the office is always getting closer to us, even as we get physically further from the office, but the digital leash extends to our personal lives, as well.
At least now we still have the issues of international connectivity that form a barrier to universal coverage, limiting us to hotel rooms, internet cafes, and open wi-fi hotspots. For those of us who don’t have GSM phones, of course — for us, connectivity, like politics, stops at the water’s edge.
* We expect we can change things on the fly: Once again, mobile connectivity means that flexibility can trump itinerary, to the extent that depending on our tolerance for risk and adventure, just head off in a general direction without anything but the roughest plan and still keep the uncertainty to a minimum, for only modest rebooking fees.
Again, this is a high-level look at vacation in the socially-connected era (and I guess I’m more of a planner, anyway, even though I’m not a very good one, which is part of why I don’t go on more vacations). Do you have your own thoughts on the digital vacation era? Please leave a comment below.
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