By RUBEN CORBO
I can’t imagine traveling without broadband internet. How on earth would I show off my tan, share the glorious sunset, and generally brag to my friends that I’m in a tropical island paradise and they are not? Half the fun of traveling is to exercise my bragging rights. Well, maybe not half. But surely one third. Snapping photos and uploading them to my blog minutes later is quick, convenient, and ten times more effective than trying to evoke the experience a week later, back home, chatting over coffee while my tan fades and I’m all grumpily readjusting to the old daily grind. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an instant picture shared immediately from thousands of miles away must be worth, oh, ten thousand.
Have you ever asked a local for directions? Okay, the lady who worked at the post office really knew where things were and also had a gift for explaining it both clearly and concisely. But everyone else either gave me the deer in the headlights look, swore there was no such thing anywhere in town and never had been, or gave directions that were so wrong they were worse than useless. They were, in fact, counterproductive. That’s not to criticize the locals. I’m sure I have been equally unhelpful to passersby on many occasions. There is no reason to assume that every random stranger on the street is a walking, talking encyclopedia of local lore. If you want and need access to reliable information about some place you have never been before, it’s best to keep broadband internet access in your pocket (or car or backpack).
I don’t know about you, but I’m a serious geek. A vacation would not be relaxing without access to my email account, reading my favorite web comic over morning coffee, and otherwise conveniently taking with me all the parts of my life I actually like and do not want to get away from for a week. Then there is online banking. How on earth do you cope without it, especially when you are far from your bank branch and in a different time zone? Once, I got in a smidgeon of trouble, cash flow wise, while traveling and called mom for some emergency funding. Mom is great and promptly rushed off to the bank with an infusion of much needed cash.
I checked my bank balance online and the deposit was showing so fast that when I tried to call her to thank her, she wasn’t home from the bank yet. Mom has not gotten with the whole internet thing. She couldn’t wrap her brain around the fact that I already knew the money was there. I guess it is pretty mind boggling if I stop to think about it for a minute instead of taking such amazing services for granted. There was nothing even close when I was growing up. At one time, just being able to call an automated line to check your bank balance was considered revolutionary stuff.
I also track down favorite stores, restaurants, and hotels online while traveling. I am not real big on taking an itinerary. I prefer to go with the flow — plus, every trip seems to have some minor emergency. The internet and other modern conveniences makes it a manageable and pleasurable experience instead of making me look like the lost and clueless airhead I sometimes felt like in the past when travel plans went awry for some reason and I didn’t know how to readily fix it. Now I feel like I can fix anything, anywhere.
Ruben Corbo is a writer for the website Broadband Expert where you can find broadband internet providers in your area and compare prices on different deals for your mobile broadband needs.
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