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“But where’s the fun? Where’s the adventure? It’s not just “If it’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium,” it’s “If it’s seven o’clock, this must be the Café Le Petit Obsessive-Compulsive, this wine must be the Pinot Noir that I read about on Wines.com, the server must be Yvette, who got high marks on TripAdvisor, and I have to be done eating by eight o’clock so that I can follow the Google Map instructions to the subway station and use the Paris Metro app to catch a train to Montmartre, where I will snap a photo exactly like the one I saw on WikiTravel, which I will then upload to Facebook at the Internet café recommended on the bulletin boards at Yahoo! Travel because they accept American credit cards.”
–Doug Mack, Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day
April 23rd, 2012 at 8:01 am
I suspect modern child-rearing practices are to blame. So many of today’s young travelers grew up with every moment of their day planned. They grew up thinking that life was mainly a scheduling problem. They grew up with the constant feedback of their peers. To them, the unexpected was not a good thing. We should not wonder that they do not take easily to foot-loose adventure.
April 24th, 2012 at 4:10 am
@DEK – Good point, modern parenting is strange. If today’s young trekkers ever get exposed to a microbe or two, they’re done for as they likely won’t possess a robust immune system.
April 25th, 2012 at 5:07 pm
First of all, a lot of people want predictability. They want recommendations.
Second, by the time you go on a trip, you may have read so many “must see” / “can’t miss” / “best of” lists you can’t help feeling like you’re missing something if you don’t plan-plan-plan ahead.
A useful travel recommendations list would look something like this:
1) Go somewhere, wander around
2) Make new friends, have dinner with them
3) Take a nap in a park
4) Wake up late, see what’s happening that day
5) Ask a local what’s their favorite restaurant
Sadly, these will all yield unpredictable experiences.