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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just returned from Oahu where i was basically tasked with replicating my parents honeymoon for their 50th anniversary. They were expecting leisurely breakfasts and then just showing up to the tourist attraction they felt like doing that day, for free or practically free. "Let's play it by ear." 
They were pretty shocked that I had to handle prepaid reservations for everything, endless QR codes, and logging on at 7 am to get tickets for 48 hours later (Hanauma Bay was sold out by 7:01.) My mom kept telling me to put my phone away and I literally couldn't! "We have to leave for Diamond Head right now or we miss our window. I'm sorry you didn't get your third cup of coffee."
I knew what I was getting into but I think they were pretty disillusioned.[/quote]

Yes they were disillusioned because that was how travel was 50 years ago.  I'm 64 and went to Europe for the first time in 1969 when I was 8 to visit family in Italy.  We had to get vaccinated (true story!) and drink bottled water because the water wasn't safe in any of the countries we visited over the six weeks we were there (Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland).  I had never seen water sold in a bottle before (and then we were conned into thinking we need bottled water in the US - that happened I think in the 1980s!)

Anyway, It was a super big deal to travel on a plane to anywhere in those days and people got dressed up! I remember my mom and I planning our outfits to wear on the plane a week ahead of the trip!  You could just show up at places like the Sistine Chapel and the Lourve and have no lines. And women had to cover their heads and shoulders to enter any Catholic church.

I've been travelling to Europe pretty regularly since that first time when I was 8 and it has certainly changed a lot.  It's just so much cheaper and easier to plan trips. I still love to travel but I try to go as off-season as possible, which really isn't possible because there is no off-season in many places.  My nephew lives in Amsterdam and he loves it but said that there is never a low season any more and it is packed with visitors 365 days a year.  Many places in Italy are like that as well.

DH is from India and we spend a lot of time there as well.  When I first went there 27 years ago, people often stared at me like they had never seen a Westerner before.  These days nobody looks twice as there are so many Western travellers there.  The world is getting a lot smaller![/quote]

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