My dad's old road atlas made me rethink everything

Last week my dad pulled out his 1995 road atlas during dinner and started telling me about driving cross-country on $20 a day back then. He said he never booked anything ahead, just found cheap motels by looking for vacancy signs after dark. It hit different because I realized I spend hours scrolling for deals online when he just... went. Made me wonder if all these booking apps actually save money or just make us feel like we're in control. Anyone else ditch the phone for a while and try old-school travel?

3 comments

3 Comments

maxl938d ago

I mean, not to be rude, but isn't this kind of romanticizing the past a little too hard? Your dad had to do that because there was no internet, not because it was some magical life hack. Maybe all the apps do is save you from sleeping in a Motel 6 with bedbugs.

olivermason8d ago

My dad drove a 1973 Ford pickup with no AC from Seattle to New Orleans in August 1986, and he stopped at three different gas stations just to ask for directions because his paper map had a coffee stain right over Arkansas. He got bedbugs twice, spent a night sleeping in the cab of his truck at a rest stop, and missed his own cousin's wedding by a day because he took a wrong turn. The point isn't that the old way was better, it's that people got by without needing an app for every little thing. You're not wrong that bedbugs are bad, but there's a middle ground between romanticizing and acting like nobody could travel before smartphones.

fiona_hunt718d ago

@maxl93 for me it was a smudged map and three days lost near Tulsa, but I still made it to the Gulf.