Travel Weekly Digital Edition - 50th Anniversary Edition

PLACES

Continued from Page 16

The philosopher Johann Herder said that history is geography set in motion; thankfully, there are still places on the planet where history moves at the pace of an oxcart rather than an A380.

Just as politics and sociology can change destinations, so can technology and economics.

The world began to shrink as aviation technology brought most nations’ capitals within 24- h ours of each other (provided, of course, there are no d elays on the tarmac). And as a result of globalization, c ognitive dissonance often becomes part of the travel e xperience: You feel it when you see a Bedouin speak-i ng on a cell phone outside his tent in the desert in O man or when you look out the window of your hotel i n Johor Darul Takzim, Malaysia, and see a Starbucks. Photography, video and 3-D imagery have brought the far-away and exotic, lifelike, into our homes. Wiki-pedia can satisfy our intellectual curiosity about anywhere in the world.

But even during this era when we no longer have to t ravel to find out all we want to know about the world, t he travel industry has boomed. No matter how true to l ife an image may be, no matter how skillful a writer, t he sense of place that is conveyed digitally or in print i s never the same as what a traveler experiences when a ll five senses are engaged. Photos of the Na Pali coast o n Kauai don’t smell like the Na Pali coast on Kauai A street scene in Dubai from 1958 and an ( though it’s likely someone is working to correct that). aerial view of Dubai taken in 2007. No matter how faithfully a place is replicated virtually, people still want to see places for themselves. For one thing, they want to see if it is, indeed, as represented. And travel conveys status: To say at a cocktail party that you watched a fascinating documentary about Bhutan on the Discovery Channel will never have the same cachet as talking about how you were given a personal tour of the Bhutanese relics of Taktshang Monastery by its head monk.

T W PHO TO B Y ARNIE WEISSMANN

Perhaps the defining trend for travel destinations from 1958 to the present has been the mainstreaming of the remote. In 1958, a trip to Europe or Hawaii would earn you a place among the best-traveled on your block.

That has changed.

If Europe represented the destination for the “Grand Tour” in the ’50s, ’60s and early part of the ’70s, the next generation had its formative travel experiences following the hippie trail through Asia Minor and the Indian subcontinent and then down through Southeast Asia

See PLACES on Page 20

TIMELINE

1977
Djibouti becomes independent.

1978

Dominica, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu become independent.

1979
Kiribati; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; the Marshall Islands;
and Suriname become independent.

1980

Rhodesia changes name to Zimbabwe. Vanuatu becomes independent.

1981
Senegal and the Gambia begin steps to merge into a nation
called Senegambia.

1983
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declares independence;
is recognized only by Turkey. Belize, Palau, Antigua and Barbuda
and St. Kitts and Nevis become independent.