Trip Maker

One of my least favorite things to do is to plan for travel. It was not always this way. As a child, I could spend days going over maps and travel itineraries before a family vacation. Then there was the joy of counting down the days left before we left. After becoming the responsible adult and head of household no less (as I had been for close to ten years now), planning for travel turned stressful and irksome. It took some extremely determined friends to drag me out of the house, force me out of inertia and on a trip. I enjoyed traveling that way because I had nothing to worry about except being physically present.

The Explore feature on Kayak is a wonderful concept and a step in the right direction for one such as myself. In addition to showing me options in destinations for my budget, choice of activities etc, it would be great if I could get hotel availability, suggested itineraries based on my interests - in general a higher degree of aggregation and consolidation. In the ideal world, I would look at my options and select one and magically I would be all set for the trip. This is possibly the next best thing to the idea choosing a vacation destination by throwing a dart on a map while blindfolded.

Remote Bazar

The idea of bringing a bazar or souk to you couch is a very interesting one. The more interactive and immersive the experience, the better for the customer. Imagine having a virtual reality application that gives someone the feel of walking through a crowded marketplace in an unknown country - even without being able to purchase, that might be worth spending some money to enjoy. This does seem to be an idea with some legs.

As the virtual and real worlds confluence more and more, travel will lose a lot of its charm. If one could experience it all and not have to expend money and energy to get there, it would take more than just visiting a place to get something out of it. Used to be only some parts of a country were popular tourist destinations and the discerning traveler would go elsewhere and have a memorable experience.

With technology where it is today and headed for in the future, finding those pristine, unknown nooks will become more and more difficult. Part of the travel experience has always been coming home to share one's stories. Today's audience is a jaded bunch - people have been there and done that. They know everything there is to know about the place you just visited and have heard about it from several others. The bar is much higher if you wish to thrill and delight them with your travel story.

Lost Charm

In his book Falling Of the Map, Pico Iyer writes "When we chose a place to visit, the way a country carries itself and markets itself - the way it knows itself, really - is everything. We flee certain resorts not just because they are touristed but more because they have begun to see themselves through tourists' eyes, to amend themselves to tourists' needs, to carry themselves in capital letters : because in short,  they have simplified themselves into their sense of what a foreigner wants."

He goes on to say that Vietnam "still has the bashful charm of a naturally alluring girl stepping out into bright sunlight after years of dark seclusion"

I could not help drawing a parallel between Iyer's examination of what makes a destination more or less attractive to what makes a person more or less interesting to a potential partner. "Touristed" might translate to having had multiple relationships in the process of trying to find "the one". To that end, the longer someone stays in the dating pool, the more "touristed" they become.

The process specially over an extended period of time would likely make the person more amenable to "amend" and "simplify" themselves until there is no "charm" or "allure" left in them. They arrive at that point carrying their need to be a relationship in "capital letters" and in doing so, drive away the more discerning among potential partners. The romantic partner equivalent of an astute traveler like Iyer may not by stopping by to be with them.

Directions From Home

Learned about the Shanti spa at San Miguel, Mexico by way of Mexicowoods. India is recreated many different ways all around America - temples, restaurants, grocery stories,ethnic clothes and jewelry stores and more. They always look out of place no matter what their location - walking into desi restaurant in a strip mall where nothing else has the remotest connection to India is always unsettling. So is finding oneself inside what is made to resemble a temple after walking through the doors of an office building.

It takes a while to get oriented though sometimes the setting is little too incongruous for this to happen. Food (possibly the closest connection to home) is re-purposed in strange ways to cater to local tastes. By when you get directions to the place on your GPS unit or Mapquest, there is little left to salvage the "authentic" desi vibe about the whole deal.

The directions to Shanti, the Indian spa in Mexico, makes a desi feel at home right away. Everything about it is approximate and imprecise - you have to follow a set of landmarks to get there. That seems much closer home than I anything I have seen north of the border.