Daniel Maurer: The Future of Travel, Kartoniert / Broschiert

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A leading food and travel journalist depicts and predicts the good, the bad, and the ugly about the future of travel — and how we can transcend the complications of climate change, AI, and touristification . . .

In the future, tourists will strap on a VR headset that serves up information about the storefronts and cathedrals they pass, letting them “see Paris” without actually laying eyes on it. Instant-translation earbuds will mean we’ll never have to learn the words Dónde está la biblioteca? – and who needs a library or bookstore when Spanish-English dictionaries and guidebooks are obsolete?

Meanwhile, thanks to AI, travelers will have an unprecedented fount of information at their disposal – but how much of it can be trusted? And is it really “saving time” if AI bots are sending everyone to stand in line at already-overrun tourist spots?

And what about those over-crowded spots, such as Barcelona, where residents are so traumatized by crass crowds of visitors that the walls are graffitied with “TOURISTS GO HOME,” and signs to “PLEASE PEE IN THE RIGHT PLACE,” with a QR code optimistically pointing them to self-cleaning public toilets.

In the coming years, more cities and countries will take drastic measures to combat not only a flood of tourist but of a growing worldwide workforce of “location-independent professionals,” by forbidding apartment-sharing apps, turning away cruise ships even as biofuels and hybrid tech make them more environmentally friendly, enacting congestion pricing and car-free zones, and grounding budget airlines such as Ryanair (or “Ruinair,” as climate activists have dubbed it) in favor of zero-emission, hydrogen-fueled train networks.

In The Future of Travel, award-winning food and travel writer Daniel Maurer — himself a veteran globetrotter — will predict epic tugs-of-war between the travelers and the locals who are marginalized by these trends, and the stakeholders who benefit from them. We’ll see a push and pull between cities that have hit a breaking point with touristification and outlying towns that continue to court “remote workers,” even as they shun the lower-earning “migrants” who follow in their wake, delivering their $20 bagels.

We’ll see what happens when technology allows entire new classes of travelers to move — as far as they can, as much as they can.