The future revealed: what travel will be like in 2024

THE future of travel is set to radically change. Get ready for virtual realities and digital travel buddies. Here’s what you can expect in 2024.

Welcome to virtual realities, the future of travel in 2024.

TRAVEL is all about adventure and excitement, discovering the new and the unknown.

It's the challenge of hopping on the wrong bus, struggling to get directions to your hotel in a foreign language, stumbling across a hidden eatery with the best local food, not knowing what awaits you when you get off the plane.

But wait. What?

A virtual reality headset that lets you explore destinations in minute detail before you even get there? Wearable gadgets that translate your every word into the local dialect as soon as they leave your mouth?

Algorithms that, even before you've bought your ticket, work out what you like to eat, the kinds of places you like to visit, and whether or not you're travelling alone?

That's the future of travel, according to a report by Skyscanner, a travel-comparison website.

By the 2020s, says CEO Gareth Williams, searching and booking trips will be “as easy as buying a book on Amazon”.

Virtual reality headsets are the future of travel.

At first glance, this seems brilliant.

Imagine: no time wasted at dud destinations, no nasty shocks when you arrive at a less-than-salubrious hotel, no arguments in garbled foreign languages, no getting lost.

Nothing you didn't pre-plan.

But aren't these the very things that make travel fun?

What if technology leaves us with nothing to discover, because we've already explored it all before we leave for the airport? Of course, no one will be forced to use hi-tech gadgetry, and people wishing to throw a dart at the world map and hop on the next flight will still be able to do so.

But with all the options available, will we be able to resist the temptation? And if we don't, will we lose the very thing that attracts us to travel in the first place?

Perhaps technology is about to change the notion that travel broadens the mind.