Yeah I'd say it's easier to travel these days in many ways. Airfares are lower as a percent of income and the internet is everywhere. On the other hand it doesn't feel quite as exotic and the price differential between the west and cheap countries isn't as big on the whole. Some countries are kind of closed like Afganistan and Iran but on the other hand ones like China and Myanmar are more open than they were.
But that's not what I was responding to. Re-read the context:
> The feel of travel was different then because no internet, no cell phones.
The feeling of freedom that came from pre-internet travel was a result of being able to leave your home and its associated troubles and constraints behind and go someplace where they couldn't find you. Nowadays, all those troubles and constraints follow you around no matter where you go.
Yes, you can still go to the wilderness, although even that is disappearing fast. But in 1985 you didn't have to retreat from civilization to be far from home. Today you do.
I travelled to Europe in 1985. When I landed in London I quickly realized that I had vastly underestimated the cost of living and I didn't have enough money with me to last to the end of the trip. Today that problem would be fixed with a trip to the ATM, but back then there were no ATMs. Dealing with contingencies like that was a big part of the experience. When you travelled in 1985 you did it without a net (pun intended) because there was no net. But you didn't have to leave civilization behind. Today you do.
So you felt free, because you could not get money?
No, I know what you mean. The spirit of not having everything nice and secure and organized. Then you have and need space for improvizing.
When I did backpacking shortly before the smartphone area, I also ran out of money in New Zealand ... but I ran out completely with only emergency money send option, so I had to discover traveling very low budget style. Hitchhiking, wild camping etc. adventure.
(until I got back to australia for farm work)..
But - I still do this regulary and so I can tell that the smartphone certainly changed traveling, but there are still plenty of adventures waiting outside if your are open for it and not just want to impress your instagram facebook peers with cool pictures.
> So you felt free, because you could not get money?
No, of course not. Don't be daft. At that moment I didn't feel free, I felt trapped. But I got through it, had the time of my life, and learned that I could get by on less money than I thought I needed. I don't think I would ever have learned that lesson if circumstances hadn't forced me to.
Some people think freedom is access to unlimited resources. It's not. Freedom is the ability to achieve your goals with the resources you have at your disposal, whatever they might be.
> there are still plenty of adventures waiting outside
Yes, that's true. But nowadays you have to seek them out much more actively then you used to. Simply being far from home is not enough any more.
It's kind of like free climbing versus climbing with a rope and harness. Knowing that you might actually die (or have to sleep on the street) focuses the mind in ways that simply being on a rock (or being far from home) does not. Nowadays you have to work a lot harder to shed the harness.
I wouldn't say that the feeling was that I was more FREE. I would say that the feeling I had was that I was more AWAY, remote. But even so, I remember that one of the inspirations for my trip was a pic in National Geographic, a street scene in Herat, Afghanistan. It seemed SO exotic. And then, on my trip, I came to that very spot. But somehow, by the fact of me being there, it was already not so exotic. Like, how exotic can it be if I am there?
I wasn't making a comment about freedom to travel, just the FEEL of travel, but regarding places that are open and closed (to me, an American), right, China, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, Eastern Europe weren't open back then. Now they are. But countries where I traveled and felt safe then, I wouldn't feel comfortable going to today: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt. I guess overall, much more of the world open today.
There was a big cold war with a real iron curtain dividing the world back then.