No mobiles, only lifeline home being a pay phone call every week.
Not the same stores in every city as it is today.
Life was beautiful back then and we did not know it.
Times have changed, and now like it or not, we are in the internet and smartphone age. The best travel deals are online, the cheapest accommodations are also found online. The Interrail pass is a bit of a relic, it can still be useful, but if you have no plan and limited cash, you are probably better off chasing last minute deals on your trusty smartphone.
And yes, I think we have lost something, disconnecting is hard, and stores tend to be all the same these days, and finding something interesting to bring back home is becoming a difficult task now that you can order everything online.
But I also think we gained something. The language barrier is breaking down. More and more people speak decent English as a secondary language, smartphones come with pretty decent translators, plane tickets are ridiculously cheap if you are not too picky. Getting in touch or keeping contact with people on the other side of the planet is almost too easy, great for exchange. When travelling in a group (even a temporary group), having mobile phones cuts down on the time waiting for people to gather, and offers more freedom than "let's meet at a precise place at a precise time", which is one of the most annoying parts of travelling in a group.
Now, I talked a lot about "cheap". That's because while travelling, I consider using money to be like cheating. You can do everything (well, almost) with money. Want to do a smartphone-less trip, randomly hopping into trains? You can, with money. Finding a ho(s)tel without price-checking online first? Sure, with money. Cheapening out is a good way to keep a "no plan" travel unplanned. But yeah, now there are smartphones involved.
And life is still beautiful. In my opinion, more beautiful than it has ever been, but in different ways.
And even on the cheap, let's keep in mind that money is central to the luxury that any tourism is. In my 90's youth, I figuratively littered the map with pushpins in countries off the path beaten by Westerners, impressing family and friends. But really, I just happened to have the privilege of taking a few months for clueless wandering with no worries about means and the knowledge that if the affair turned sour I could at any point arrange a safety net. Sure, I was a fairly cheap backpacker, but still there was no glory in such adventuring - just money. I still recommend it to anyone who can, and that experience has shaped a large part of my later life in unforeseen ways, but I have long stopped gloating about it.
Is that really something that was gained? As we lose more and more languages we start to lose unique cultural features right? It’s like “we gained McDonald’s in every city - my comforting home food is available everywhere”.
> When travelling in a group (even a temporary group), having mobile phones cuts down on the time waiting for people to gather
Kind of the same thing. It’s a focus on efficiency. Speed run through life experiences. Why even go to the Louvre when you can throw on your Meta headset and do it from your couch?
I’m not a travel elitist or anything like that, I just think these “benefits” come with a lot of drawbacks too. As the world gets smaller and more efficient it becomes homogenized and travel starts to become pointless.
Connectivity/smartphones do make things "easier" but they also tend to make them less spontaneous and serendipitous. And, yes, while a lot of it is that I'm trying to declutter my house and I like to travel light, I also find that I have pretty much zero interest in shopping abroad.
Not really a gain if you ask me.. The melting glaciers are agreeing with me and they are not impressed by the downvotes I'll receive for this opinion.