My parents were both travelers of this period. I sent them the article.
Parent one: This is just the time I was in Indonesia. End of 1971. No guidebooks. No english spoken. A different time. A wonderful time to be travelling. It's so true about the expense of developing pics. Which continued after we had children.
Parent two: Great article. I remember those dorms in India and the 6 weeks I spent in Nepal where you walked or cycled everywhere. I carried my medium format camera with me. I photographed the main temple in Bhaktapur which was destroyed by the big earthquake in 2015. That's where I met Tom who carries on his travels, currently in Sri Lanka with his bicycle. Great memories. Your pictures of China will be a good record in the not too distant future.
NB. I have spent most of my life in Asia since 18 (now 40). Caught the end of TCs and no ATMs or internet. Also sent the article to some other friends of the era, may update with their responses when received.
I was an exchange student in rural Japan in the early 2000’s and I think that was the final moment you could see the world like this. There were no smartphones yet or ubiquitous internet. I had some guide books but they were very general.
My host family didn’t speak English at all. Every day was like a puzzle: what does this building do? What are these tickets people have? What is this strange food, is it even food? How does this toilet even work? My only contact with home was an email I sent every month, because I had to go to a special place a different city that had internet. There were so many snacks, books, products, clothes, TV shows that no one at home had ever heard of.
I went back in the 2010’s and everything had changed. The security of your phone makes the feeling of isolation, risk, and adventure disappear. You can look everything up, it’s been documented, you’ve heard of it already. You’re still texting and talking to your normal friends on social. Everything is everywhere, you don’t really detach from home.
Pros and cons. You can still selectively investigate things without looking them up. And sometimes you run across things you can't really find online.
I think the way we relate to people in other countries has changed somewhat due to contemporary technology. We've gone from "encountering the Other" to "encountering distant cousins" - having additional slices of shared modernity. It's not entirely bad, and people and outlooks and cultural norms are still be very different around the world.
(When I first went to Japan, I could barely communicate there and everything was mysterious and exciting a la Lost In Translation, but with my current language level and familiarity, there's still fun in wandering slightly less touristed areas and chatting with the locals. Whether they're familiar with foreigners or not, it's generally an interesting exchange to learn about their experiences, like with the Hokkaido man who singlehandedly built Japan's northernmost lotus pond to try to improve the tourism potential of his hometown, or the Sasebo jazz bar owner who took me to a tiny bar in a cave-like bomb shelter.)
You can still drop your phone if you want to, but if you don't, that implies that your judgment looked over the sum of all things and decided to keep the phone. Or not.
phones are to ingrained into everything. like i remember when i was younger if you got lost you could go somewhere like a gas station and maybe get directions. why would you do that now. so someone else can look it up on their phone for you?
I see you've never been to developing country. Good luck with your online menu in street restaurant or same with buying shady overpriced ticket where even locals dunno what's real price and you end up paying less than locals (Indonesian buses in general).
Fascinating read. What a privilege to have traveled the world at a time when modernity made doing so possible cheaply, but hadn’t yet taken ahold of the destinations. A historic window of opportunity that’s all but closed.
Very true. I am a bit behind the author of the article in age, and in my first real adventure trip, and I can tell you it is not the same at all now. You can be on a mountaintop calling home from half way around the world. We are so tethered to smartphones, ATMs, and others to guide our treks now, or at least most people are, and we lose the ability to truly wander without interference. Solitude, not loneliness. I used to buy one-way tickets to places, go with very little cash to exchange at a bank, and make my way working here and there to make just enough to drip feed my trips.
I grew up in the late 60s/early 70s in Brooklyn. I didn't make my first trip abroad until I was 18 to England and the Netherlands. Not too exotic. Then some of the islands like Jamiaca, the DR, etc. But then I went to live in Spain in the Northern region of Huesca after touring all over Spain. What a blast. I called my Mom and Dad after being out of communication for three months. My brother, who I had not really seen a lot while in the U.S. started writing me every three or more weeks where I was living in the mountains near the French border. Then Portugal, and other European cities. Costa Rica (before Ecotourism took off), was my first foray into rainforests, jungle camping, rafting in waters with different fauna, and their ilk. I later went on to a few more places, but longer stays than 8 months or a year. I lived in Macau for six years, Indonesia for a year in a rice-farming village with dirt floors in most of the houses, and traveled to Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam (honeymooned there). As smartphones and the internet popped up everywhere, the experience became diluted. Yes, I climbed volcanoes, dove great reefs, camped out in cool jungles, but the individual time alone with myself and no distractions was noticeably missing. I realized this when I was able to make a Skype call almost everywhere I went, sometimes with better internet than I had in the U.S. I think the current way to get some of this back is to turn off your smartphone, or risk leaving it somewhere, and enter a less-visited place. I am old, and biased, but the gaggles of digital nomads in cafes, hammocks, and on beaches with their notebooks and tablets propped open almost makes me wish for a "Transcendence" event (the movie, not the movement, but some will argue it's the same thing), or dare I say a post-apocalyptic existence (just a daydream, not a wish!). This article warmed me over with nostalgia for this same experience. I guess there is still the ocean and the deserts, but they probably have 5G by now!
Most of the world still sees few foreign tourists, and much of it is interesting nevertheless. Difference is these days you might actually be able to use an ATM and internet in towns, and you don't have to carry film for all the photos you want to take in your backpack..
>Difference is these days you might actually be able to use an ATM and internet in towns, and you don't have to carry film for all the photos you want to take in your backpack..
Those two things already kill most of the adventure
I'm not sure lugging cash with you in a moneybelt is actually all that exciting really, and you're welcome to use the internet as little as you like and won't encounter it much when trekking in mountains or crossing desert in a broken-down 4x4 anyway.
I'm reminded of the time I nearly lost my wallet and the guesthouse owner pointed out that when he'd done that in the seventies in a neighbouring southeast Asian country he'd had to stop and work for very little money to raise the funds to get home. I don't think he considered that a highlight of his trip!
Yes, and you also used to be much more dependent on "magic" bits of paper for tickets/reservations/etc. I get the nostalgia for a less computerized world but aspects of it weren't really all that great when something went wrong.
I probably don't disconnect as much as I probably should for certain types of travel. But not everything about completely disconnecting is wonderful.
> I probably don't disconnect as much as I probably should for certain types of travel. But not everything about completely disconnecting is wonderful.
When my partner and I travel, we travel at a breakneck pace. We get up in the morning, stuff our faces with some calories, then head out, and we're usually walking, backpacking, bicycling, motorcycling, and occasionally train/driving/tour busing through most travel locations for 10+ hours a day. We frequently net 7-10 mi of walking per day unless we're in a particular place where you have to drive to get around. I still use my smartphone to download tickets, reservations, and maps (often don't get signal in parts), but we never sit still for long enough to have more than a small peek at the smartphone while having lunch or dinner.
I'm always amazed at how many people find it so difficult to disconnect on vacation. Maybe if you're the type to sit around in a comfy hotel and vacation that way the temptation is stronger, but for me, travel is the easiest way to disconnect.
There are still places without ATM and internet for the true adventurer. The adventure level can range from easy in places like Papua New Guinea to moderate when you go deep inside the Amazon forests to hard where you have to survive on the North Sentinel island.
>Imagine visiting Afghanistan! Just hopping in a bus and going over land!!!
I heard tales of people/companies buying an old city bus in Europe and driving it to Europe. They'd get gas money along the way by charging other travellers and then make more by selling the bus in India.
Hard drugs are completely decriminalized here in Seattle. You can fen smoke fentanyl on the bus without getting into trouble. Unfortunately. I miss the 80s when people were at least afraid of getting caught.
(with the disclaimer that it has been 30 months since travelling widely)
It's still possible. 99% of travellers proceed along narrow planks of tourist hotspots that represent 1% of what is interesting in the world. Once it was lonely planet trails, then tripadvisor routes, now instagram pin plots. It's so easy to step off those paths, and doing so is very rewarding. Use those guides as guides as to what what not to do - at least not for long.
Hmmm I'm afraid with my limited vacation time each year I'm now a firm believer in following the well trodden path most of the time. I've had too many trips where you try and do something completely unique like go to an island or a province "tourists never go to"...and then you discover why. There's nothing there. I went to a couple of the Pacific islands in Micronesia which don't get many tourists thinking I was being so adventurous. It was the biggest pain in the ass to get there and it turns out no one goes there it's because it's basically a sulfur mine (1 nice beach though). So call me boring but from now on I'll queue up to see the Taj Mahal with 20,000 other people and enjoy that experience just as much.
I mean, that's what "adventure travel" is most of the time. If you don't like the journey then you won't enjoy it. My partner and I backpack and bike travel quite a bit, and yeah there's definitely towns you enter that are just... boring towns. Sometimes you end up at a beach you found on the map/saw in the distance and you realize it's cold and rocky. There have also definitely been occasions where we've been quite scared for a variety of reasons.
It's fundamentally a bit of a gamble. The folks that keep doing it enjoy the gamble. There are some hills I've crested while bikepacking and some towns I've been through that have been absolutely gorgeous and those certainly help, but everyone I know who enjoys this kind of travel enjoys getting outside and getting a bit rough and dirty. I encourage everyone to travel like this as long as they feel safe (and it's important to remember that different genders, sexual minorities, and ethnicities will feel differing levels of discomfort in different locations so safety should always be top priority.) But if you don't like the gamble, then head to a resort and take a tour bus to the Taj Mahal!
The trick (unfortunately) is to slow down. If you don't have a tight schedule, and can sort of wander, you can start somewhere well known and end up somewhere off the beaten path pretty organically.
You'll also meet a network of longer-term travelers who exchange info about where to go (and not go). You don't have to go somewhere that literally no one has been to see something a bit unique, magical, and mostly devoid of casual tourists.
Going off the beaten path in my experience requires genuine friendships with locals. I guess if you're super outgoing and adventurous you don't need that, but in my experience it has helped immensely to have locals (again, as friends, so they're not trying to scam you or at least mislead you) take me to cool things.
I suppose it's not realistic to do this for a lot of destinations, but where it works it works well.
That's the key. I don't have the time anymore, but I'd often book a couple of days in a bnb or small hotel in an area I was curious about, then get to know the locals for where to actually go for a longer period, usually with introductions and instant friends.
I now know well a tiny village I go back to regularly where I'm part of the small summer swell of visitors, to go fishing and sailing without a crowd of tourists, because getting there is a bit complicated without assistance.
Wasn't the Lonely Planet era basically about hordes of Western backpackers going off the beaten path, while Lonely Planet carefully documented all the good things the backpackers found? It made many obscure places famous, but only a few of those famous places became touristy, because the others were too difficult to reach.
Consider something like Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal. If you mentioned something about the Trans-Siberian Railway, everyone and their dog would recommend going to Olkhon. Not that many people actually went there, because the island is quite remote.
>Wasn't the Lonely Planet era basically about hordes of Western backpackers going off the beaten path, while Lonely Planet carefully documented all the good things the backpackers found?
It was about first generation international travelers showing up with thousands of dollars in electronics in places with much less tolerance for wealth inequality, feeling entitled to selectively decide when to follow local customs.
I got the sense it's meant to give you a sanitized experience, so that locals can have their own places, but you don't feel excluded.
(I visited Paris and London pre-Instagram, doing about 3 days in each, turning my phone off as much as possible and trying to stick to paper maps)
For me, the Lonely Planet era was after the overland routes to India closed but before smartphones became popular. Flying started becoming affordable, and infrastructure in the form of backpacker hostels and printed guidebooks largely replaced the word of mouth as a way of sharing information. It became increasingly likely that if you discovered something nice off the beaten path, other backpackers had already been there and documented the place in a guidebook.
Probably right, I didn't leave North America until the twenty aughts. Things changed very rapidly in a short time between that first trip and just a few years later.
The first Lonely Planet book, Across Asia on the cheap, was published in 1973 afaik, so there weren't many electronics around back then. So it has little to do with the type of traveler you discuss, not that these didn't show up in more recent decades.
You can find the original one on archive.org if you'd like.
> I remember taking an overnight bus from India to Kathmandu. That bus was probably not more than $5. I remember that morning, after traveling all night, rolling down the Kathmandu Valley and seeing the Himalayas, and a whole city with zero cars.
Imagine all the cars in a big city in the 70s, with all the inefficient carburetors and the leaded gasoline fumes, and arriving at the above...
Nowadays, the not-beaten path probably also has concrete buildings and people on their smartphones. I remember doing a van tour in the steppe of Mongolia, for the last night the driver drove around until we saw someone on a horse. The tour guide asked that man if we could stay in his yurt, and Mongolian hospitality meant of course we could. In the yurt the family had a smartphone, I saw the USB-A plug for the charger, and it amused me that even in the middle of nowhere, Mongolia, people also had to try 3 times to plug in that darned cable...
I was in Myanmar a few years ago as one of the few tourist groups to enter when they (temporarily) re-opened. I saw numerous children, living in huts and on dirt roads, playing Clash of Clans using military-provided electricity and internet (in order to influence votes)
I live in a pretty remote village in Thailand (actually very close to the border with Myanmar) and our village has an internet café. A lot of (mostly) boys spend time in the internet café after school playing video games.
When not in the internet café, many children and young adults play games on their mobile phones.
About 2 weeks ago I was in a coffee shop nearby and 3 adolescent boys were playing games there on their mobile phones. They bought a coffee to get access to free Wifi and then spend at least a couple of hours, perhaps all day, playing games.
I stayed at a mountain “resort” in Sichuan middle of nowhere that was totally off the grid, but they got enough electricity from a water wheel and a near enough cell tower that you still weren’t completely disconnected.
There’s a “revealed preference” thing going on among backpackers these days.
Everybody says they want to see the unspoiled remote village, but they actually go to Vang Vieng. The rough and ready backpacker accommodation of the past with a cheap bed and nothing else can’t compete with the place up the road with the pool and air conditioning.
There is remarkably little option to travel today like we did in the 90s. Because kids today don’t want that. You can spend £20/night on the place that would have been £20/night back then. But the £5/night place has been torn down and replaced with another £20 one.
There are plenty of beds for £5 in (to use your example) Laos. I had a room not too long ago for under $5, on the Mekong. I wasn't around for the 90s, maybe cheap rooms were much easier to come by, but they're not too difficult today in that part of the world.
To be fair I thought days of Vang Vieng glory are gone with end of tubing or is it back?
But I agree Vang Vieng was for me tourist hell, though if you get on motorbike and just ride along those karst mountains through villages and unpaved roads it was much better, the problem was the village itself mostly and tubing, I despise much more Luang Prabang full of retired package tourists everywhere you moved, that was truly much more disgusting than VV.
How do you find things to do then? I’ll share what worked for me: follow a particular interest in depth, that way you can rely on your unique expertise to guide yourself off the tourist track. But that doesn’t always feel sustainable.
>In every culture the native costume is the first thing to go, native architecture is next. Food is one of the last to go, even in modern places where people are wearing blue jeans. So these days I like to go to places where there is still native costume and native architecture. Unfortunately these areas are shrinking. I'm not nostalgic about it; I understand the reasons behind the changes, and it's a net improvement, but someday they will be gone and I want to capture them.
And with that comes the expansion/availability of flavored sugar water and cigarettes at their local corner shop, and the dissolution of community trust.
Im beginning to question if modernization is the right choice for everyone (or anyone).
Some hard evidence is diet changes negatively affecting certain groups of people (e.g. Aboriginals, possibly African Americans). Some groups' metabolisms have a really difficult time handling wheat and/or sugar, leading to obesity.
Softer evidence includes general happiness (which is an important metric when considering which life is "better"). It's a meme, and a truth, that simpler people in Africa are happier than us modernized folk. Its not often you meet a modern man that is present, undistracted, and unwanting.
The curse for unmodernized societies today is the communication available to the outside world. Humans are cursed to be discontent once they find out there are better options available.
So, in which places today do people still wear their native costume in preference to western clothes such as shirts and jeans? I can think of: Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE), Bhutan, Saharan Africa.
The contemporary Arabian garb isn't exactly "native" or historical. It's a successful attempt at developing a national identity for countries that hadn't really existed as nations before the 60s.
> Humans are cursed to be discontent once they find out there are better options available.
Yeah, it turns out the “simplicity of famine” after a tribal territorial dispute destroyed food supplies isn’t so great after all. Or simple water sanitization problems causing severe sickness for 1/4 of your people.
That simple life is good when it’s the right ratio of work rewarded with reward (food, shelter, respect in your peers). Otherwise it’s life and death misery.
Currently there's a famine going on in Eastern Africa. Children are dying daily of acute malnutrition in Somalia. I don't think life is too rosy for them.
The first few chapters of Ringworld talk about the state of the world after teleport booths make it possible to instantly travel anywhere. The protagonist is all depressed because nowhere is unique anymore. He can hop from Shanghai to Boise and see all the same people going to the same chain stores and speaking the same dialect while doing the same thing.
I can already notice the difference visiting places now compared to the 90s.
A lot of this stuff is so much more recent than people realize.
I went to Southeast Asia in 2010: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand.
One of my stops was the famous "Lunch Lady" from Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations [0]
There was no Uber, I had no data. I had printout of a map, but just look at the kind of map I had to go on in that URL from 2008. There were slightly better directions from Vietnamese-only websites.
I had to get a cab driver to take me to ROUGHLY the right area, and then wander around until I found her.
I'd have to go to smoky internet cafe to upload photos and email my family.
Ubiquitous mobile access and data is what's really flattened most of our world. It's unquestionably an improvement for the people involved, but travelling definitely has a lot less charm and sense of discovery now.
I went off to grad school as DADT was in effect, then Uber came into my college town, and I could see how things changed rapidly, in many ways, and not all of them good.
It's great people can get safe, cheap rides without DUIing all over the place, but it's at it's heart a jitney service propped up with Saudi money.
>Ubiquitous mobile access and data is what's really flattened most of our world. It's unquestionably an improvement for the people involved, but travelling definitely has a lot less charm and sense of discovery now.
I'd argue there's plenty of charm and discovery if you just turn off your phone and be mindful someone doesn't know if you're from North Dakota or North Korea if they haven't met you before or heard you speak.
I really enjoyed AB's show, but I worry people take the wrong thing from it -- they engage in low key herofication[1] of the specific cook or restaurant, rather than learn the names of a few dishes to try at a cafe where they might not give a damn if some American has a good experience or even comes back.
> I really enjoyed AB's show, but I worry people take the wrong thing from it -- they engage in low key herofication[1] of the specific cook or restaurant, rather than learn the names of a few dishes to try at a cafe where they might not give a damn if some American has a good experience or even comes back.
You didn't address me directly, but in case you did, that's an uncharitable interpretation of my story. If you weren't, you're probably right - I worry about the same. People just watching the show and only going to the places he did, and not doing any of their own cultural exploration.
For the record, I spent 2 weeks in Vietnam, and I spent most of that time just wandering the streets of Saigon and Hanoi, following my nose, seeing a delicious bowl of soup, and pulling up a chair, or coming up to a nighttime Banh Mi vendor, and pointing and grunting at the fillings I wanted.
In amongst that, I also did some research of specific places I wanted to visit, and The Lunch Lady was on the list. Even if she wasn't exceptional (even for a place as steeped in culinary quality as Vietnam), which she was, there is something to be said for a parasocial connection with someone's experience. Mild heroification is still meaningful emotionally. Whether he would be upset by this or not, I got to sit in the same chair as Bourdain and have the same experience as someone who I admired and who's thought process resonated with me. That meant something to me. That feeling was real, and my memory of the spot is richer and more vivid because of that connection.
Anything can be taken too far. I admire Elon Musk's bold strategic vision in rockets and electric cars, but I have no interest in blanketly giving my life to defend his horrible ideas on cave submarines, car-sized city tunnels, flamethrowers, or twitter moderation policy. Unlike seemingly a million of his followers who would also just as blindly defend him from credible sexual harassment allegations.
I went to Thailand on an Excite/Adventure tour in 1989. I was the only American in the group and it was mostly younger people.
Checking into the hotel in Bangkok as a single man, they just assumed I was there for sex, and asked if I wanted a girl sent up to my room (the answer was no, in case you're wondering).
We also trekked through the "native tribes" areas in the north, where the tribes had been "persuaded" not to practice slash-and-burn agriculture anymore, and made a side income from hosting tourists. Believe it or not, one of the tribes was called the Karens.
The Karen (no S) you met were most likely refugees from Burma. For decades their lives have been very controlled by the Thai authorities, who use them as exotic tourist exhibits. The Thais don’t allow them to farm for themselves as they want to keep them dependent, subservient and profitable (I confer no judgment in the tourists who visit them as it’s complicated). So they tend to have secret fields in the jungle so that they can grow their own food and not suffer the whims of their hosts.
The Karen have long been one of the primary armed groups fighting for their own state and against Burma’s military junta. As a result they’ve been persecuted by the junta. Currently their territory has some of the worst combat in the ongoing civil war.
There was definitely some farming among the hill tribes, but I don't know by whom.
We visited one tribe that was considered Bad by the missionaries, so we didn't stay there. They were thought Bad because they all chewed betel nut and consequently had red mouths.
I'm not a fan of betel nut chewing, it's really unsightly & messy, but it's basically their equivalent of smoking. A lot of missionaries have odd ideas about how the people they are trying to "save" should behave. Some villages will play along in the hope of getting some benefit but others will have nothing to do with them.
I think I have some analog photos, but I never scanned them in. Anyhow, there were five tribes, so I don't remember specifics about the Karen, and these might be about the other tribes.
Details: we were told to bring gifts for the women & children, but not for the men. For the women, only threads & needles for sewing. For the kids, just wrapped candy.
When we got there, the kids all got together and sang for us. Then they said, "OK, now you sing to us!" The rest of the group was British, so the only song they all knew was "It's a Long Way to Tipperary."
They had a big hut that the tourists slept in. After dinner, the women would bring out their crafts and sell them to us.
It's not true that roosters crow when the sun comes up. They crow when it's still dark.
Although I maintain that a persistent travel itch is a symptom of dissatisfaction in day-to-day life which should be addressed, I backpacked Europe and the Middle East the summer after university. I was an incredibly enriching experience and one of those things people should do if they can afford it. I plan on doing Cape Town to Cairo in a few years.
Cape to Cairo is incredible, though if you want to actually get off the beaten path, I recommend West Africa top to bottom.
I went places where locals had never seen white people, where it honestly felt like I'd back in time 50 years and where people are just genuinely joyous from the bottom of their hearts, even while living in mud huts.
It's an incredible part of the world, and also one of the most difficult to travel (visas, corruption, malaria, etc.)
Why dissatisfaction? Do I pick up a book because I’m dissatisfied? Do I paint because I’m dissatisfied? Travel is another form of exploration, but not the only one.
I am very grateful that modern technology has led me to exciting places that I would not have found without it.
I traveled for 20 months between 2016 and 2018 in Asia and Europe with my self-made 4WD camper. I spent months in the Mongolian steppe and an Iranian desert. Without the map data from the Openstreetmap project (and a satellite navigation device) I would not have found many fantastic places and wonderful routes.
The Mongolian nomads still have their yurts (ger they call them), their herds, and their families. But they also have smartphones and solar panels today. Does this ruin the experience of visiting these wonderful and hospitable people? I don't think so. It makes to better because you can stay in contact easily after leaving their country.
How did Mongolia compare to other places you have traveled? I have been eyeing going there for awhile now - I was mainly planning to maybe spend a few days in Ulaanbataar since I would need to fly in there and then make my way over to the Altai mountains to do some backpacking and mountaineering.
Not OP, but Ulanbataar is a traffic jam. I guess walking is possible, but not great with all the rustbuckets spewing fumes...
Was there in 2019, I'm not sure if I used Google Maps for buses or figured out the paper timetables, in any case there was a lot of waiting for and on the bus (due to the traffic).
I think a whole day is enough for UB, maybe 2 days, and that would include a trip to a cashmere factory store (got a cashmere sweater for 60 Euro) since there's nothing else to do. Apparently the way to get around town is to stick your hand out, and everyone's a taxi you can haggle with. I didn't know any Mongolian so I didn't dare do this.
I did a 5-day van tour of the steppe (mostly south of UB) with 4 European 20-somethings (plus a driver and guide), it didn't disappoint, each night we went to a different yurt camp set up for tourists, where there were also vans full of Koreans with wheeled suitcases..
The way to move in Ulaanbaatar is using locals as a taxi. Everybody does this and most people stop whem you give a sign. You have to know the current inofficial price per km and make clear you don't want to pay more before you start the ride.
The everybody-is-a-taxi replaces the missing public transport system there.
I spent a few day in Ulanbataar and then went on a horse trek in the Altai in 2014. Ulanbataar felt, to me, like a post-soviet city bursting at the seams with informality (which it is). The main plaza with its status of Ghengis Khan is something but I got the sense that the locus of Mongolian culture is outside the cities.
The Altai was amazing. The horse trek was an organised affair (through Zavkhan trekking) and struck that sweet spot between immersion and comforts. Comfort preferences vary but we got hot meals, someone else dug our pit latrine, but we still had to pitch our tents. On horseback or not, I highly recommend it.
About the comparison:
Mongolia is the most 'democratic' state in the area. You don't have to face police corruption (robbers in uniform) or bureaucratic insanity like in man ex-Soviet states. That was very relaxing for me, because I hated the daily encounters with uniformed robbers in Kazakhstan.
And the Mongolians are nomads. So they have a tradition of traveling. Traveling is the most normal thing to do there. As a traveler this makes me somehow feel at home.
The key for Mongolia is time. The country is so big, you need time to explore and to learn how things are working there.
Ulaanbaatar is ugly but nevertheless interesting. There is much to learn. I liked the big market with its yurt parts section very much.
The Altai is very far away from Ulaanbaatar. Very far. It is a 1.400 km tour mostly on sand tracks. I would use a car and plan a week for just the trip from Ulaanbaatar to the mountains. But only if you hurry and don't want to stop and have a look left and right of the main track.
To enter the Altai you need a special permit because it is border area. But you get that easily in the capital.
I think I was looking at a small small flight that went from Ulaanbataar most of the way toward the Altai. I forget where. Anywhere else nature wise you would recommend going?
The nature is open, wide, and great verywhere in Mongolia except Ulaanbaatar. If you like the open steppe.
Remember that you need a vehicle or a horse to get somewhere. There are domestic flights. But when you leave the airfield you need something to transport you into the mountains.
If I would fly to Mongolia, I would buy a small Chinese motorcycle there (200ccm, you get a new one for 1k$).
If you are a horse rider then Mongolia would be your paradise. In this case I would be a horse.
But I am sure you can find a guide who drives you with his car whereever you want.
One of the biggest changes is that even in the 1990s in many places, you'd have minimal or no contact with anyone back home and probably even reasonably cut off from news. When I went on a few ~month long trips to Nepal around that time, you were just starting to see some terminals for email here and there towards the end of the decade. But you were pretty much cut off from most communications.
>One of the biggest changes is that even in the 1990s in many places, you'd have minimal or no contact with anyone back home and probably even reasonably cut off from news.
But did you grab english language papers as you traveled? Or truly just stop getting western news?
I suppose you could have. Personally I wouldn’t check on the world back home at all, except to send the occasion postcard (or email when that became possible).
I’d learn about it all after getting home. Or sometimes not. I remember there being big movies that had come and gone while I was away that I only learned about years later.
It’s hard to imagine, watching the current crop spending every evening on their phones instead of talking to other travelers.
Mostly there weren't English language newspapers. I guess I'd have found out about anything truly important on an international scale. But mostly no news. But then even at home most of my news was Time magazine once a week unless something was sufficiently important to reach me day to day.
Now I’m curious, where do you live? “News” are serving a very weird market, almost 100% about selling stories that satisfy the distorted attention span of demographic majorities who have no interest in going beyond the surface level of their groups model of consensus. It’s an omnidirectional intellectual wasteland, ignoring some pieces of economical (etc) analysis.
What do you have to be informed about a priori?
After years of dodging newspapers I got hooked on “news” in feb-mar 2020 due to Covid. Took about one month until I remembered that it’s a complete waste of time. I feel like the HN-audience has very little to gain from news directed at the general population.
There are independent media in Russian language (most not physically located in Russia), internet at large, social networks and VPNs to access those that are banned.
But if you were someone who "didn't follow the news" for the last 10 years, you would consume government's propaganda instead, and believe it. Which is my point.
That's a ridiculous comment. I don't follow the new here in the United States and do just fine. I don't watch TV, I don't visit news websites, I don't use twitter, reddit, or Facebook. But I still hear about important news thru everyday conversation. 99% of the "news" is useless unimportant filler.
My parents come from a developing country which was underdeveloped in the '90s and we did not "follow" the news. Relevant bits of news were hawked by anyone and everyone (if there were any general strikes, curfews, etc) but otherwise we were just blissfully unaware. My family came from an urban area and it was probably a different situation in rural areas, but rural areas never had any of the events you needed to steer around from the news anyway, so I don't know if it was any different practically speaking.
Not sure about your point. Trekking in Nepal in the 1990s, there wasn't an option to get the New York Times delivered to my tent every morning regardless of the stability of the country I lived in. And, indeed, backpacking in many locations even in the US, I wouldn't expect Internet access today.
Back in those times, that was often limited to places that hadn't been recently politically de-colonized.
Wow ... great article. Imagine calling Nat Geo and getting to actually talk to the photo editor. Or going someplace to enjoy navigating a culture without guides or signage or language or pocket tech. Real adventure.
Ah... I had the priviledge to glimpse a tiny sliver of what he is writing about, that feeling of experiencing something that will be soon lost forever. People, culture, rituals, food, form of existence.
I did 6 months backpacking in India and Nepal in 2008 and 2010. Nepal was tame, relatively full of westerners(at least parts visited - Annapurna circuit in pre-season time, Kathmandu, Pokhara, Chitwan). But India could be wild in many ways. We went off popular places quite a bit and travelled and lived as close to natives as possible, and you could still find places where kids (or whole village) would look at you in awe and horror when you came, everybody would gather around you, touch you, bring you home for dinner and so on.
Those experiences in my late 20s shaped my personality more than anything else. I felt back then I was in another universe since forever, former existence just a memory of distant dream even if it was just 2 months into trip. All this pointed me later to directions in life that stood test of time as best choices of my life.
I still did it almost completely unplugged (well internet coffee max once every 2 weeks, super unreliable), no phone, no credit cards, just all cash i took with me on body belt.
This could be achieved on average monthly budget of +-500$ back then. But costs were growing maybe 20% every year.
Imagine what the original experience back then must have been...
As one friend with similar mindset, whom we found around Annapurna said back then - you can't share those stories with people back home. They don't understand the magic, the intensity, be it positive or negative. Often they don't even want to hear about it. But with similar person you feel you are member of same tribe, and they understand that smile when you tell stories much better...
The thing I find amazing about this piece is that Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired.
Here’s a guy who’s headline (to the rest of us) is he was in the middle of documenting tech in the 90’s, and, to hear him tell it, that’s not the thing that defines his life. Wired was just a middle filler for his real story , which is about travel.
And Google Translate and GPS (which is particularly handy given the addressing system). Communications can still be a bit tough even in major cities, but it's definitely easier than it was 15 years ago.
My next job I want to travel again. I spent three years traveling to not-sexy places in the USA an UK, and a year going between US and China. Despite note being hot destinations in any of the countries, it was still fascinating. I quit a year before the pandemic because there was a loneliness about it, and I was never going to find a significant other if I was always gone.
During the pandemic I took up Mountain Biking and that is now becoming my excuse to travel post pandemic. I'm exploring all sort of new places and taking my mountain bike with me. Looking to do some "destinations" once a year, like Saalbach in a few weeks, but next year I hope to have the skill to do something like Whistler in Canada. Even in the USA though there's so much to explore: Winter Park, Bentonville, and many more.
I never want to travel for a job ever again if I can avoid it, and it seems that the world has changed enough that's an option (fingers crossed).
I spent most of my early career traveling all over the place. Meetings in 3 cities in 2 countries in a day? No worries. Got to be 8 time zones away for lunch tomorrow? My carryon is already packed. I got to see great things; always found a way to eek out a little time here and there to explore. When I could book-end a trip with weekends that let me get out were the best.
But, in the end, business travel is about business. The movie "Up in the Air" hits really close to home (tho I didn't lay people off when I got there...usually). I have (had) a job to do wherever I landed that trumped any extracurricular plans I might have. The physical process of business travel has gone from mildly annoying to something out of Camus. Worse...every year older, it's harder and less pleasant. And in the end, with a small exceptions, the inside of an office and hotel room doesn't change much country to country, and on many trips, that's all you see.
From now on, when I travel, I want it to be purposeful. It will be about the destination, and not about whatever I can squeeze in around my business obligations.
The big lesson I learned was if the engagement was on a Monday morning, and I had to fly Sunday, that needs to be reflected in compensation somehow. I was forcefully adamant that I flew during the week only without structured and logged PTO compensation.
The other company I worked for had no issues with me booking longer stays past the engagement as long as I covered expenses for those. That gave me a day or two in most places and I could hit highlights.
I guess I didn't explain well enough. I got/get paid (well) for everything I did work related. Leave Sunday for Monday meetings? Client paid from the time I left my house. Travel outside work hours during week (the redeye)? Client paid. Work crazy hours because something went nonlinear on-site? Client paid, alot. Never work for free.
But that always means my personal plans are secondary to the work requirements.
Those 'bookend' weekends I took when I could so I could actually see things? Obviously on my dime, though every company I've worked with was good enough to let me book the hotel/plane tix at the company rate (my regular place in the middle of Dublin is something like 300 Euros a night normally but I think 120 at corporate rate). Good times!
But really that 1-2 days you eek out of opportunity and corporate kindness is nice enough to get a taste of things (and recommended)...but not really enough to get what I'm looking for any more out of distant, otherwise very unpleasant travel, especially crammed into the margins of a business trip.
A memoir along the lines of OP article: How an Average Man Lived an Adventurous Life. He backpacked around the world as an American in the 70s and 80s. Hippie trail, you name it. At the end, he retired to his hometown with his wife in Illinois.
For a more close to home focus, I do have to point to A Walk Across America from the same time period (I think the author wrote a sequel about more international stuff)
Interesting read though I think he focuses a little too much on the hardship of his travels and not enough on the joys of his journey. Or maybe his travels were not that pleasurable -- that is the impression I got anyway. Also unfortunately, the pictures do not have captions (where are those two fellows on their small donkeys?) and it seems the digital scan of the 35mm could have been a little higher quality. Lastly, if interested in a good read on a similar subject checkout "L'Usage du monde" (The Way of the World" in English) by Nicolas Bouvier. He covers similar territory but expressing more of the delights of wanderlust (as well as the hardships).
The hardships are the joys, at least that is the way I read it. There is obviously a threshold, and getting robbed and having to work to get out of a country is unpleasant I'm sure, but the intrigue and friction in navigating a new culture is what makes traveling such a pleasurable activity.
This is an inspiring read, and somehow it makes me think, without looking at the author's name, that the author is very likely male. I imagine solo backpacking was/is a very different adventure for a young woman.
But totally doable. I had a friend who traveled from Europe, through Siberia to Japan. All over Europe, Americas, went even to Africa IIRC. She's still travelling now, but with a boat and a companion. Probably been around the world many times now. I've heard only few incidents that were spooky for her, mostly just stories about wonderful people with big generosity. But that was 2000s and further. So different times.
Remembers be this great book, unfortunately not printed in english, about how at the same period if time, Philippe Gloaguen started his traveling book adventure.
What a beautiful read!
Unlike now, backpacking was a true adventure - you were on your own, totally cutoff and no one to call if you were in trouble.
Now it seems like you've seen everything and that makes travel a lot less exotic that it probably used to be.
I was backpacking around Asia in '94 .. my connection to the rest of the world was my trusty Sony shortwave radio (ICF-SW1) .. anyone else remember those glorious days ? :)
Growing up in the 1960s in New Jersey was very parochial
[...]
I knew nothing about Asia, or even travelling; I had never
even been out of New England.
I realize I'm nitpicking here with regards to a very enjoyable and wonderful article but... what? New Jersey is not in New England. Same quadrant of the country. But that's bizarro.
From the names it seems reasonable to me that "New York" and "New Jersey" should be parts of "New England." As a Californian, I thought of all of the NE as New England and am surprised that they aren't. Wikipedia says the "Dominion of New England in America" in the 1600s did include New York and New Jersey.
Yeah this is the elephant in the room that no one talks about. And it’s not just about old guys going over there and picking up prostitutes, young guys will go over there and pick up regular girls on Tinder, just because it’s way easier to get laid there than in the West, for a bunch of controversial reasons that we aren’t allowed to talk about.
It's mostly just money. If you're a caucasian-looking foreigner, most folks in developing countries will think you have lots of dollars/euros/pounds to spend, which goes a long way in these smaller economies. Same reason store vendors will probably try to charge you higher prices. As someone who's not caucasian but has traveled with folks who are, it's certainly an interesting sight to see.
Probably because prostitutes are on Tinder now and poverty drives them to such behavior. You will have a tougher time in more economically advanced countries compared to one popular hotspot which you are talking about.
Also why fly 4000 miles just to have sex? Why not just pay for a companion here?
As an asexual I don't really understand this. My friends are constantly rambling on or making remarks about how so and so would make a good potential lay. I guess its about quantity and more can be had at lower rates, especially in poverty stricken countries.
I suppose if you sold your company and your portfolio is earning several million dollars to tens of millions of dollars its easy to be sugar daddy to a college student and it seems like its culturally accepted here.
Makes sense why there is such strong calls for abortion rights, something like this would be unimaginable in some cultures and I can see why but then again I don't quite agree with trying to oppress individuals from choice.
This part of human society, I just do not understand. For instance, I don't understand why so much of the population would be so driven to have sex or have romances.
Imagine if you could not make a single friend and nobody wanted to socially interact with you. If this was your condition, wouldn't you fly to a land where people would talk to you?
Or alternatively, imagine you are very very hungry, and a person who doesn't feel hunger doesn't understand why you would go to great lengths to eat food.
Some people also don't feel pain either and don't understand why people go to great lengths to avoid the feeling of pain.
You can make many metaphors for whatever things you desire and avoid on a feeling level and understand how non-asexuals feel.
Sex is a very primal need for most people. Lack of it for long time drives people crazy. It's just how evolution has primed most homo sapiens. Going to south asian countries is cheaper for sex travellers probably. You can rent a gf experience for few weeks at the same cost it will take to hire an escort for few days in the west.
why is it that for some people this is not a problem? what makes them this way vs most people? for a very long time I pondered why I am not like others but after I realized that I wasn't alone I found much solace.
I think for the same reason that you're asexual but most folks aren't. I didn't have too many issues being single for large portions of my teens and early 20s, but I knew friends who would structure their weeks around finding a sexual partner at the end and would get intensely emotional about failing. Age is probably a factor as most people become less sexually and emotionally motivated with age.
You could still experience something like this even in late 00s when I travelled to Asia in 2010 on year long trip which end up with me staying there for 5+ years. Heck even on my trip to India in 2007 in many places I had problem to see foreigner, I was surprised by lack of English and I think I've never travelled with another foreigner in my bus when getting around India from South (think Kanyakumari south) all the way cross cross to Delhi.
Heck I remember in 2006 you could found guesthouse meters from Khao San Road in Bangkok for 80THB with nice street meals for 20-25 THB, essentially free water from purifier stations, so you could easily exist in Bangkok as traveller in 2006 on 120-150 THB per day (3-4 USD) with food and accommodation covered and mind we are talking about extremely touristy Bangkok. In Kanchanaburi you could have even nicer accommodation in Jolly Frog for 80 THB with delicious dishes in evening night market next to train station.
That was regarding price level - regarding untouched or hardly touched places with people not speaking English, this covers big parts of Indonesia and I don't much changed in decades since author experiences, Indonesia and China are countries where you will have/had definitely problem to find English speaking person, luckily at least Indonesian language is extremely easy so I could handle at least basic communication in Indonesian after few days forced to learn it to get to places where I wanted and stay on budget, I was eating only in local warungs/street eateriers where no tourists roam hanging with locals greeting me everywhere happy to see foreign face since they rarely see one stepping out of daytrippers going from car outside to take photos and back to car.
Even in Thailand if you stay out of famous islands you could still find undeveloped islands like small Ko Chang, Ko Jum etc., some of them without any cars, without power lines from mainland running on diesel generator only in evening.
Same goes to Philippines, many places in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Of course don't expect this in tourists hotspots, but if you try to go elsewhere I am sure even in 2022 you have no problem to find places untouched by tourists where they don't see foreigner whole year. And even if they see it's very different approach whether is someone going everywhere by minivan eating in fancy hotel restaurant or you getting around and eating like local (being cheap).
Of course social media, GPS, always connected phones, offline translators changed experience a lot for those who wanna use them, but it doesn't mean it has to be for worse, I'd see translators as improvement, you are able to get much more local now really in places where no foreigner roam. OTOH GPS kinda ruined travelling, since getting lost was part of the experience and was forcing you to interact with locals, now idiots can go all they around staring at their phones without saying a single word to local. ATM is convenient for withdrawing money, but cash is still the king in developing countries.
Btw. it makes also huge difference whether you travel in peak season or off season, it's like two different worlds if you don't mind worse weather, places which are packed with tourists in peak season can be easily completely deserted in off season.
Parent one: This is just the time I was in Indonesia. End of 1971. No guidebooks. No english spoken. A different time. A wonderful time to be travelling. It's so true about the expense of developing pics. Which continued after we had children.
Parent two: Great article. I remember those dorms in India and the 6 weeks I spent in Nepal where you walked or cycled everywhere. I carried my medium format camera with me. I photographed the main temple in Bhaktapur which was destroyed by the big earthquake in 2015. That's where I met Tom who carries on his travels, currently in Sri Lanka with his bicycle. Great memories. Your pictures of China will be a good record in the not too distant future.
NB. I have spent most of my life in Asia since 18 (now 40). Caught the end of TCs and no ATMs or internet. Also sent the article to some other friends of the era, may update with their responses when received.