Travelling the world is one of the most rewarding things that you can do. We ditch our routine and our norms and experience so many different cultures and different ways of life to broaden our minds and enrich our lives. In the days of yore, sending a postcard that was unlikely to get home before you did was our only way of showing our friends and family how much of an uplifting trip we were having.
Luckily, the development of the internet allows travelling to bring us all these experiences while retaining some of the things we don’t want to miss by travelling away from home. From the spread of access to strong and fast Wi-Fi to modern payment methods that change how we think of money as we roam, the internet has helped revolutionize travelling. In developed world countries such as the US, you have a huge selection of options from windstream internet plans to super-fast fibre broadband.
Wi-Fi Almost Everywhere
Did you know that the base camp of Mount Everest has a strong internet connection, ideal for those pre-climb selfies? Or that Kfar Kedem in Israel offers a trek on the back of a donkey, complete with Wi-Fi accessed through a router attached to the animal? Val d’Isere ski lifts in France also offer Wi-Fi access, allowing skiers to document aspects of their experience that might otherwise have gone amiss. There’s even Wi-Fi at the North Pole and on The Moon: the former to allow scientists to report back their findings and the latter for the eventual workers who will end up there, and may need to speak to those back on Earth.
So, from a travelling perspective, there are few places where we can’t upload our selfies, check in on social media, or produce video logs of our journeys. Some may argue this takes away from the experience, but in fact, it allows us to better document our travels and to keep in contact with those back home, so we are able to continue travelling without being homesick – or without our loved ones worrying too much.
Of course, whilst access to the internet is growing, limitations can be added by the providers of those services. In China and parts of Korea, worldwide content may be heavily censored and you will be unable to watch your favourite Netflix show in all countries. This is when a VPN is useful as it allows you to change your country of origin as well as other benefits. The Firefox browser is a common choice for many travellers as it has various privacy settings built-in and you can find the best vpn addon for firefox easily through their plugin library. Once you are fully anonymous and have access to your favourite shows, those long donkey rides across the desert will fly by.
Modern Payment Methods
Another invention that has changed what it means to be a traveler is the armada of payment options available. Travelling the world does come at a financial cost, even if it pays back in dividends with what you experience out there. But, modern payment methods mean that we can take our card and withdraw cash in the destination country’s currency, have money sent to us from afar and are even able to make payments in the middle of nowhere.
With digital currency and e-wallets, storing money in your phone and even eschewing standard banks could be the travelling revolution of the future. Some industries are even embracing this technology. With some of the modern payment methods, it could be argued that it’s too easy deposit. Online casinos are embracing these modern payment methods, such as InstaDebit in Canada. Many people feel a certain peace of mind when they switch to these digital methods: travelling alone with large amounts of cash is far from ideal and users can make the instant payments they make via online payment methods abroad just as easily as they would at home.
The internet has done for travel in the 21st Century what aviation did in the 20th and allowed many people the opportunity to traverse the globe and experience everything under the sun. Whether you choose to document your journey with a beach selfie is your choice – but at least you have the choice to make.