Out there in the world of the Internet, there’s a community of people. Whatever your focus in life, you can find a twitter chat, blog post, Facebook page or Instagram feed to showcase your interests and connect with others who have a similar concentration. Today’s online world has pros and cons just like everything else....

"Everything science gives us immediately becomes normative. To an eighty-year-old man, a computer is this amazing device that creates instantaneous access to limitless information. He can’t get his head around it. But to a twenty-year-old man, the computer is a limited machine that costs too much and always needs to be faster. Because human live...

"New devices, new methods, new machines to make new products, new proofs of the power of the human mind to conceive and the human hand to construct instruments with which to conquer the forces of nature and bring them to the service of humanity -- these are the characteristics of the age we live in....

It may be hard to imagine in this techno-heavy world we live in, but people once traveled without the benefit of electronic gadgetry. No mobile phones, no netbooks, no iPads - not even a calling card to use at a payphone. In some cases, people travel nowadays to escape the sort of technology that makes...

Since I've written quite a bit about how electronic technology is transforming travel , I enjoyed reading " GPS and the End of the Road ," Ari N. Schulman's essay in the Spring 2011 issue of The New Atlantis . In the essay, Schulman posits that GPS devices, along with "location awareness" apps like HearPlanet...

"In the best travel, disconnection is a necessity. Concentrate on where you are; do no back-home business; take no assignments; remain incommunicado; be scarce. It is a good thing that people don't know where you are or how to find you. Keep in mind the country you are in. That's the theory." --Paul Theroux, Ghost...

Often while traveling, it seems that there’s no place immune from a wireless connection. Hotels, cafés—even buses allow you to connect with the world using your cell phone, laptop, or notebook. It’s been many years since I’ve heard someone make a call from an airplane using those seat-back phones: “Hey, you’ll never guess where I’m...

The technology explosion of the last ten years has made the dramatic growth of vagabonding possible. For as long as we have roamed the earth, there have always been those who view the open road a little more wistfully. Great adventurers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and James Cook needed the coffers of kings...

When I was in Morocco several years ago, the familiar blue-with-a-red-star cover of Lonely Planet Morocco's guidebook was everywhere; the herds of people who crowded every hostel all had the same one, and we found ourselves tracing the same roads as lots of other people. The most memorable times from that trip came from following...

As the world becomes smaller, is travelling tending towards becoming obsolete? Popular reasons for an extended period of vagabonding usually boil down to discovering more about other cultures, and finding out about yourself. The self-discovery part is still very much alive, but surely one day there is just going to be a global mish-mash of...