BootsnAll Travel Community

So a couple of weeks ago I was riding the skytrain (BTS) around Bangkok minding my own business when I overheard a conversation between a tour guide and 4 older (Like 60+ ) American tourists. I figured them for being just another group of package tourists - BIG MISTAKE.

Well..I answer one of the questions that their tour guide didn't know the answer too, and I end up having a brief couple minute conversation with one of the women. She realizes I am American. One - it turns out that she used to live in Seattle area too.

But here is the kicker...

Apparently she did a round the world trip in 1961. Whoa! 1961! Before Lonely Planet was even founded in the mid 70s!! This was her first time back in Bangkok since then. She made some comment like their being so few cars back then...

Too bad..I had to get off at a stop soon...it would have been so good to pick her brain. not sure where else she went...they were headed to Vietnam though - closed during her earlier RTW trip.

Since then I read the story recently of Tony & Maureen Wheeler's (Founders of Lonely Planet) first travels in SE Asia in the mid 1970s at the beginning of every LP SE Asia on Shoestring guide. Their descriptions of places compared to how I know them as I have visited them recently is fascinating.

So my question is:

Do you think (or know first hand) traveling around the world was easier or harder back then? Specifically 1961. Then compare to 1975. (is there much of a difference?)

I have actually come up with a list of 20 factors so far (Some make it harder, some easier)...but rather than "show all my cards" right now, I'd like to hear from some of you before posting my list.

Of course...there were world travelers like Magellan and friends, etc...but I'm talking about the average world traveler as we know it today who flies and takes motor vehicles around, not by sail and horse.

I don't even know of anyone that had real travel experience back then....wish my own family had gotten around more.

But this also leads to the question of the future of travel.....think there's any hope of crossing borders or choosing which country we want to live and work in and call "home" will be easier in the future or worse?

My parents and I started traveling since 1955.

Although we traveled just within the U.S. at that time, this is what I remember:

1) Traveling across country was so unusual in those days that people in cars from the same state beeped their horns and waved at each other.

2) Hotels and motels were out there-but were hard to find.

3) Driving out-of-state felt as adventurous as going around the world. That's why travelers put signs on their car bumpers with words like "Grand Canyon or Bust".

4) Travel writers back then(like my mother), had to constantly explain to people what a travel writer is.

Traveling now is much more convenient.
Traveling then was much more fun.

circus - that's an interesting topic. My parents started travelling seriously in the mid-60s (in fact, as a baby I was tear gassed in the student uprisings in Paris - still have a canister - great souvenir). My gut instinct is that when you net everything out, travel is probably easier ("easier" and "better" being two different things) these days. There are more travel options (esp. more airlines) and I think tickets are generally much cheaper; English is much more widespread (for English speaking travelers), visa processes seem to be generally faster, it's easier to keep in touch via email, etc.

That's not necessarily saying travel is "better" now, as I think those pluses come with some drawbacks. Flying is cheap, but airlines are much less flexible than they used to be (just try adjusting your dirt cheap non-refundable ticket). Email is easy and available, but the thrill of getting an onionskin paper letter with some exotic stamp and postmark (mailed 2-3 months before it arrives) has almost entirely disappeared. And so on.

That being said, I'd be interested in seeing your easier vs. harder factors.

BillGlo I liked your comments

"Traveling now is much more convenient.
Traveling then was much more fun."

We made our frist cross Canada road trip in 1967. While there were a few more tourists on the road than in the '50's it was considered to be quite a feat. I've since found out that my husband made the a similar trip with his parents about the same time.
My mother was the 'homebody' but my Dad always encouraged us to travel. He was of the opinion that there was more to learn from the experience of travel than from the classroom. In the sixties, as far as social studies was concerned, he was right.
There are few places in Canada that I've not been. The far north is the exception.
Years ago the flights to that area were few and places to stay fewer. Now special excursions (including cruises) are readily available.

As for the rest of the world, of course, ease of travel changes with the political climate. Sadly, as a place becomes popular the prices become ridiculous.

Thank you.

It's fun looking back on the "old days"-and I didn't even get around to mentioning the Open Road camper or the Country Squire station wagon!

Remember those?

back again...

ok...first factor...population.

World population:

1950 - 2.55 bln
1960 - 3.02 bln
1974 - 3.9 bln
2005 - 6 bln or so

So 1961 about 1/2 as many people as today. Which depending on how you look at it makes travel easier or harder. Generally, I will say harder.

Depends on region too:

1950 / 2000

Asia 1.44 bln / 3.7 bln (Too much sex, or too little sex? - which is the greater reason. Answer not as easy as you think)

Africa 228k / 797k
Europe 546k / 727k (Not much of a factor)
LatinAmer/Carib - 166k / 523k
N. Amer - 221k / 481k
Oceania - 12k / 30k

Forgot to thank BillGlo too for the anecdotal comments.

Good post. I suppose I could look at a 1961 or 1974 yearbook.

Another one -

A lot less cars/vehicles. I'm trying to find historical figures on registered # of vehicles / country. I have only found Japan so far that goes that far back.

http://www.mlit.go.jp/road/road_e/stat/

1960 - 2.3 mln total passenger and freight vehicles vs (1997 latest data) 2005 - 70 million+, and 14 million+ motorcycles.

Just found Taiwan though it only goes back to 1993.
1993 - 2003 ; cars - 4 mln to 6 mln ; motorcycles - 7.9 mln to 12.4 mln

(I think Taiwan is the highest per capita motorcycle country in the world. Quite annoying actually. I'll be there in a month or so. There were a shitlod even before 1993 I can say that much)


Anybody care to do some google searching. I have stats on cars produced / year in the US, but nothing on total registrations.

Again, depending on where you look both makes it easier and harder.

Another one -- in 1961 there were less purpose built tourist attractions to suck your money and waste your time in many instances.

Here are some notable dates:

Las Vegas - 1945 Bugsy Siegel "Created" LV as we know it today, Mirage opened- 1989 , MGM - 1993
http://aboutlv.com/history.htm

Disneyland - 1955
Disneyworld - 1971
Euro Disney - 1992
Tokyo Disneyland - 1983

http://www.wdwmagic.com/wdwopenings.htm

So in 1961 Disneyworld didn't exist. Disneyland was only beginning to get on the radar. Las Vegas was a shadow of its mere self.

So it is telling - the #1 (Las Vegas?) and #2 attraction (Disneyworld?) in the US either didn't exist in 1961 or barely did. What does that say about society (America?) when a large percentage spend their limited leisure time at an "artificial tourist creation."

There are theme parks all over the world of course...so it isn't exclusive to the US, though we have the largest I assume.

So it was easier from this perspective back then because there was less of these artificial places to distract you from seeing non "artificial" - culture, nature, history, etc...of other places. Whether that be in the US or any other place.

Not sure...if anyone cares about this thread any more....I'll make one more post unless somebody raises their hand and says "Keep going!"

here is one I just thought of (Not part of the original 20+ I have already come up with)...
our perspective of Earth / "The World" is different now then in 1961.

Based on my preliminary research...the first photograph of Earth from space was in 1959/1960.(See below)

So our modern perception (As none of us here have presumably been in space - unless some astronauts are perusing BnA) is based on "recent" images - moving or not. So in 1961 Im curious to wonder how people thought of our planet. Sure...most people in the know (There are still plenty who are not!) knew there were other planets and that our Earth is round, etc...but without any real pictures...I'm thinking the sky is the limit on what people actually believed our mostly round ball looked like....though by then...there were planes that flew high up (Not sure how high though by then)

Regardless...until Yuri Gagarin of Russia went up, no one had actually seen the Earth from a suborbital? altitude.

As you can see from the photo, it ain't pretty. Not sure how long it was before most people (In the US anyway) got a good visual image in their head of our blue marble. Media obviously was not as widespread back then. I wonder how many people in the world today have yet to see an image of Earth from space.


More links/info:

http://www1.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Viewing_Earth_from_Space.html

There's nothing more spectacular than seeing pictures of Earth from space. The first satellite picture of Earth, was taken by the weather satellite TIROS-1 in 1960.
First television image of earth from space

conflicting data:

Aug. 1959: Explorer 6 takes the first photograph of the earth
http://reinhold.kainhofer.com/Physics/Satellites/

Lots of good stuff...just found this..
http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/lae/html/110tour.htm

So I lied...I'm posting again..enjoying this talk with myself.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3927/is_200006/ai_n8906103

All excerpts from above:


1996, the world motor vehicle fleet numbered nearly 700 million, including over 500 million cars. Only about 75 million of these cars, or 15%, were in Asia (World Bank 1998)

In 2005...what is the total amount...800 or 850 million? Only 9 years, but alot changes these days.


On this basis they projected China's car population to reach 36 million in the year 2010, noting that in South Korea "vehicle sales and all consumer durables exploded once per capita income reached approximately $3500 a year". Similarly, Dargay and Gately (1997) forecast by 2015 nearly 60 million cars in China and over 450 cars per 1000 population in Taiwan and South Korea. More generally, Japan has been implicitly used as a model for Asian industrialising countries, and in 1996 Japanese car ownership reached 374 per 1000 population (

--

China, for example, auto manufacturing has been designated as one of the five 'pillar' industries for development in the early twenty-first century, with the long-term goal of a car for 270 million (or 90%) of Chinese families (Smil 1997). Calder (1996) similarly argues that for China 'a long-range projection of 300 million cars on the road is not unreasonable'.

1960, the world's cars totalled only about 98 million. The countries of western Europe, the United States (US), Canada, and Australasia together owned 92% of this total, with nearly 63% in the US alone. Asia's share, however, was little more than 1% (United Nations (UN) 1997)

--

Ownership of motorcycles in the poorer countries is usually several times higher than that for cars, while in Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand, it exceeds 100, and in Taiwan, 400 per 1000 population. For Australia the figure is only 16 per 1000 population (World Bank 1998)


There is a better way:

Table 2 shows that car intensity is very low for the affluent city states of Singapore and Hong Kong. Further, Tokyo and Osaka have much lower car intensities than Japan overall...


Vietnam reference on motorcycles 82 million people, there are an estimated 12 million lightweight motorcycles

---
Many Asians would laugh at this below:

New Hampshire Highest Motorcycle/capita in US at 5.7/100


Personally...I think the world is slowly but surely being destroyed by our mania for metal.
Which is tied to greed, fear, and ignorance.

www.carfree.com