By Adeniyi Ogunfowoke
In the past, travelling individually, with friends or family members is usually a logistical mess. It comes with a lot of challenges that discourage quite a number of people from travelling.
Fast-forward to today and with the intensity technology has been embraced in the travel industry, Nigerians can now travel with little or no logistical nightmare.
Hence, there is no doubt that technology has definitely changed the face of travel. We share take a look at how technology has changed travel over the years.
Deciding you destination
Before the arrival of the internet, travellers have to go through holiday brochures at a travel agent’s office, buy guidebooks or taking a friend’s recommendation when it came to deciding where to go. Today, it very easy to decide as you can simply visit a well know travel blog, social media handle, or even your friend’s Facebook posts to choose where to go.
Booking a hotel
Then you have to saunter around to search for a hotel to lodge. This is very stressful and time-consuming. This is past tense as you can now book a hotel from the comfort of your room. Even if you find yourself stranded in the middle of the night, you can still call Jumia Travel to book a room in any of your favourite hotels. If you are in this kind of situation then, you are simply on your own.
Staying in touch
While travelling, you can send postcards, write letters and occasionally make a long-distance phone call from the hotel reception, or a local phone booth. Thus, staying in touch certainly wasn’t easy and most people at home don’t expect to hear from you unless it is an emergency. With your internet savvy phone, you can have real-time conversations with family members, girlfriend, friends, and wife via messaging platforms. Hence, no one needs to worry much about you when you travel.
Recording travel memories
You need the services of a camera man to take photos and videos of your wanderlust. As such, there is a limit to which you can take pictures and videos. But with your phone camera, you can take as many photos and videos as you so desire. You just keep clicking. You can share the pictures on social media and upload to your cloud. It will be there forever and you can access it anytime you like. Travel memories made easy!
Learning local languages
There are so many places you cannot visit because you do not understand their language. You have to look for an interpreter or a local. Today, all you need is a smartphone and you install Google Translate or iTranslate. With these apps, you can learn the basics of any language and it will help you communicate with the locals with ease.
You will spend less
The result of all of the above is that you don’t need to break the bank to travel unlike in the past. Armed with the right technology tools, you will definitely travel cheaply.
Adeniyi Ogunfowoke is a PR Associate at Jumia Travel
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