The Future of Travel

A leading travel journalists 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 this latest addition to the FUTURES Series.
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?
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," 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 and what happens when technology allows entire new classes of travelers to move - as far as they can, as much as they can.

Daniel Maurer is an award-winning food, culture and travel journalist who has written for outlets such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, Thrillist, The Art Newspaper, Eater, The Daily Beast, Atlas Obscura, and others. He won two James Beard Media Awards while chief editor of Grub Street, a pioneering restaurant blog that he co-founded at New York Magazine. He has spent the past few years as a digital nomad, living out of houseboat hotels in Berlin and Prague, cave homes in Andalucia, poo-emoji cabins on Lake Titicaca, campervans in the Swiss Alps, and at one point a former cult leader's compound in Utah. He currently lives in Barcelona..