Why I miss technology-free travel

(Monday, Dec 12, 2016. Josh Noel.)

I’ve been a travel writer for almost eight years, but here's the irony: I’m probably a worse traveler now. Back when I was freewheeling and in my early 20s, I’d get into my car every summer with an atlas, a bag stuffed with CDs and verylittle forethought about where I was headed. I’d be gone for two weeks to three months. The extent of the technology I carried was the portable disc player connected to my tape player by a snaking wire. I stayed in pristine riverside campgrounds, quiet roadside motels operated by charming gray-haired couples and on the couches of people I’d met earlier that day. Once I forced myself to pick up a hitchhiker, a peaceful-looking, hippie-type dude. It wasn’t the life-altering experience I’d hoped for; he just needed a ride to work at a restaurant 10 miles up the road. Another time I got to talking with a guy who said he wasn’t sure he’d be able to afford his next tank of gas. I gave him five bucks — all I could spare — and he gave me a pink crystal that he said had special powers or some such. I rode around with that crystal on my dashboard for 15 years until I gave it to a friend who was dying of cancer. I wanted her to have something meaningful to me, and that was it, secured by chance at an Oklahoma rest stop and hauled everywhere I went until it became hers.

I don’t travel so much anymore. As much as I’d like to say it’s because of having a family and a job and obligations weightier than whether to turn left or turn right, it has more to do with the shiny little machines in our pockets. When it comes to conquering the unknown, those shiny little machines can tell us everything about everything: the top 10 hotels, top 10 attractions, top 10 kid-friendly sushi places and the top 10 vegan-and-dog-friendly cafes with Wi-Fi and a pool table. Worse, we’ve mostly given up thinking about how we get from point A to point B. I have mistyped a couple of letters of a street name into Waze, and unquestioningly driven a route that I knew made no sense. But the shiny little machine says it is so! When I realized my mistake, I was furious not because I was going to be late or because I had wasted time, but because I had surrendered my critical thinking about how I got from point A to point B.

So as I can, I build unpredictability into my routine. I walk different ways to work, to the train, to the bus and around our neighborhood with my little son. When traveling, I demand unpredictability. Yes, the quickest route and top-ranked whatever is mighty attractive (especially the quickest route), but when I can build in time for wandering, I do it. When I can spend time finding my way by foot — no apps or phone maps — I do that. When I can leave a hotel room with only a minimal plan, I walk out the front door. I duck into a bar. I sip a beer that I can’t find back home. I chat with a local. I ask for a dinner recommendation. And I value that answer over the wisdom of the online crowd every time.

(Available: http://www.chicagotribune.com. Adapted.)

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