How travel tech evolved over three decades during my three trips to Russia | Hacker News Reader

How travel tech evolved over three decades during my three trips to Russia

recode.net

60 pointsgvb20 comments

This is really interesting and brought back some memories for me. In 1992 I received my first internet account via a local public school initiative. I could dial-up to a county number and use gopher for something like 30 minutes a day. The first month I had this access, I went to a gopher site in Europe somewhere, and not understanding the tech at all shut it all down and waited for the enormous phone bill to arrive.

The phone bill was normal and I suddenly understood that the internet was something special.

In 1995 I became an exchange student to Russia, and the entire 3 month exchange, I saw approximately 1 computer. I made 2 phone calls to my family from Moscow, but where I was living in Russia was 1,000 miles East from there and there was 1 scratchy phone sitting outside in a phone booth for the entire 12 building multiblock of Stalinist apartment buildings. It could not dial outside of the city as far as I understood it.

Fast forward a few years, I'm now married and my wife and I are planning a road trip. We get printouts of mapquest routes, have a copy of the local road atlas (a huge book) and a copy of AAA tripticks for our trip. There was no mobile internet that was within the price range of mortals.

A few more years forward and we're in Ireland, mobile internet is available in some areas, but expensive, so I download offline maps to my mobile phone and get turn-by-turn that way.

Last year I got Google Fi, went to Europe, got off the plane and made calls, texted with friends, used the internet just like normal, booked AirBnB rooms, got train schedules and got turn-by-turn GPS directions for all of the countries we were road tripping in and it all worked flawlessly.

Absolutely insane.

> It could not dial outside of the city as far as I understood it.

Because there were no support for collect calls and Soviet payphones weren't set up to accept charges for non-local calls. You just couldn't "feed" them coins.

PS. You could though call for free if you drill a small hole in a coin, tied a length of string to it and then yank it back from the phone in the right moment. Phreaking, the Soviet way :)

In 90s Ukraine you could make free calls using a the tab of canned soda drinks, I think it was the same size as the 2 piece coin.

Funny you mention the phone bill; I remember my mom asking me if it cost more to send emails abroad, when I was at university in the early nineties.

I once overheard someone planning to make a long-distance call on her cell phone because she needed to drain the battery (I don't recall the reason).

Funny, just last night I re-read my diary from a bus trip to St Petersburg and Moscow as a student in 2002.

Just before we left St Petersburg we heard rumours of the theatre siege which had just started in Moscow. A few people on the bus had studied Russian in high school so the news filtered around. Even so, we had basically no idea what was going on.

Being poor students we didn't want to waste money on phone calls home, but we did find an internet cafe and wrote a quick email to say we were ok. The people at home knew more about what was going on in Moscow than we did.

We navigated around by paper map (in Cyrillic) and often took wrong turns. If we split off from other groups there'd be no way to meet up again until the evening. (I don't remember anyone having a roaming mobile phone.)

These days I feel vulnerable navigating in my own town without a phone, and people get worried if you aren't reachable within 30 minutes.

Even though it was a very busy trip there was still time to write the diary. On later holidays with a phone and wi-fi there was a lot more to do back at the hotels and much less time was spent writing!

So the big changes I've seen are in communicating home, navigating, and filling the time.

I suspect the next big thing will be usable real-time voice translation, which will make things easier but take some of the fun out of things like ordering a meal and playing "guess the mystery meat!"

>These days I feel vulnerable navigating in my own town without a phone,

My wife and I were in Thailand in December with our cousins. My cousin sister refused to let me buy a local sim card for GPS and stuff - said it was a waste of money and preferred to use a guide map, brochures and asking people directions.

You know what - it was an enjoyable vacation, despite my constant itch to check google maps. Planning to try this again for our next vacation, wherever it may be. Or on my next business trip.

There is something very nice about paper maps and talking to people :-)

Ever since I got a smartphone, I haven't had that feeling of uncertainty and foreignness when traveling anymore.

Maybe it's also due to having enough money to afford a smartphone, and being of a certain age, but I think knowing exactly where you are means you don't check your environmental cues as much anymore.

I'm inclined to go back to those never-enough-detail free tourist maps to see if that feeling of lost returns.

This is more like "travelblogging tech evolution for the sponsored American journalist" (and almost nothing to do with Russia).

It's possible that in 10 years Internet will be segregated into per-country segments and she'll have trouble communicating with hosts while outside and sharing photos when inside.

It feels more like two decades than three, but it was still an interesting look back at technology history.

1995, 2005, 2015. Literally, three decades. But, maybe the point you're making is that the story - like the technology - got shrunk.

A decade is 10 years. 1995 to 2015 is 20 years. So in terms of time elapsed it's 2 decades.

In the same way that noon yesterday, noon today, and noon tomorrow are two days.

Good point.

Yes, but these 3 visits occurred over 3 decades, at their mid-point. So, while 2 decades may have passed between them, its still three decades worth of samples..

That's why I said good point.

Timely article (albeit a bit loquacious for my liking). Here's my summary of how my travel has changed from "Then" (pre ubiquitous internet) to "Now".

Contact with home: Then: Highly sporadic. Occasional postcard, which may not arrive. Now: Continuous contact, every photo is uploaded on social media.

Planning ahead: Then: Big time. Now: Little.

Luggage: Then: Heavy, need to bring everything, be prepared for all eventualities. Now: Light, many things no longer needed, buy missing stuff locally (probably more a consequence of my being wealthier as an adult).

Accommodation: Then: Hotels are booked in advanced. Now: Ad-hoc on the spot after arrival through AirBnB and Booking.com.

Travel guides: Then: Important, read in advance, carried at all times. Now: Gone, everything on smart phone.

Maps: Then: Important, carried at all times. Now: Gone, replaced by Google Maps.

Dictionary: Then: Important, carried at all times. Now: Gone, replaced by Google Translate.

Taxis: Then: Flagged down, difficult to communicate intent due to language gaps, scary (who is the driver?) worried about getting ripped off and/or robbed. Now: Uber.

Money: Then: Carry cash, Traveller Checks, change at local banks and ATMs, worry big time about getting robbed. Now: Credit cards.

Flights: Then: Very expensive. Booked long ahead in travel agency, price comparison difficult, no low cost carriers. Now: Cheap. Book ad-hoc, online, price comparison easy, low cost carriers.

Meeting people: Then: Difficult, try and talk to locals when you chance to meet them in person. Now: Easy, Tinder, Meetup.com.

Photos, documenting the journey: Then: Lugging around heavy camera, always worrying about it being stolen, getting new film, each photo was expensive. Now: Take trillions of photos on phone.

Electricity: Then: Who cares? Now: Oh no, where can I charge my phone, I'm on 3% charge?

Biggest problem: Then: Will I get robbed? Now: Where can I charge my phone?

Good list. I want to note that much of this list applies only if the Western-centric Net services you listed are available. For example, much of the Google-dependent tech isn't available in China to the average non-tech tourist. I solve my phone charging concerns with a portable solar panel and battery pack. With very young children in the picture, luggage becomes heavy again, but this lightens again as they get into their teens.

True, but China has equivalents of all of them ... if you read Chinese.

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