It’s true, the world really is becoming a smaller place thanks to advancements in transport and technology. With the world population topping 7 billion in 2014, information has never been so accessible and people can get to and from places faster and easier than ever before. World travel is not unusual anymore, plus communication has never been so easy – whether done from your armchair at home or a yurt in Outer Mongolia.
Even 20 years ago it was rare for a backpacker or traveler to have a mobile phone in their back pocket and a laptop or I pad in their back pack. Communication used to be maintained via good old fashioned air mail, occasional internet cafes and phoning home from a public telephone with a prepaid phone card. Now most travelers carry some kind of mobile device with them and with the development of applications it has never been so easy to phone home and keep in touch.
Nowadays backpackers can be in daily contact with home if they so desire and there are not too many places left in the world that cannot be reached by some form of public transport. Even remote villages deep in the Amazon such as Parintins can now be accessed by travellers – granted it would take 18 hours on a river boat or one hour in a plane from Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas in Brazil, but the point is that it can be done! You could not be further from the UK when in Dunedin, New Zealand but distance doesn’t matter when it comes to having a good old chin wag with your mum or friends back home.
There is nothing like experiencing a place for yourself or absorbing yourself in a different culture and way of life however for those who don’t have travel in their blood it is true that you can now learn what it is like to live somewhere else in the world through the click of a few buttons. The internet makes it easy to share information, knowledge and experiences freely with the rest of the world. Even people in countries with repressive regimes have been able to use the internet and global communications to let the world in on what is happening where ever they are.
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