Rub Them Together

We’re adding friction to everything, and that includes travel.

Look familiar? Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash.

Is it just us, or are you also annoyed by the vast amounts of highly filtered, hyper-streamlined photo-op-ready vacations flooding your Instagram feed? We’ve had it with the same-same, predictable negroni-in-the-sunset-in-Positano photo. We all know that drink was watery by the time whoever took it managed to put the iPhone down and take a sip.

The perfected travel photo is part of the numbing effect that friction-erasing technology is having on our lives. It’s why we’ve been feeling a strong desire to let our travel plans get a little messier and more inconvenient.

We’re definitely not the only ones contemplating this: “Friction” has become a buzzword — the discussion is about adding friction back into many aspects of modern life, like working, socializing, grooming, dating, ordering food, and raising kids. (See: this, this, this, this, and this — as well as this recent popular piece.)

We are starting to admit that technology hasn’t delivered on what it promised us. ChatGPT, location sharing, Uber, Seamless — they’re all avatars of the frictionless life. Yes, they have made some aspects of modern life easier, like having to wait for a taxi, ask for directions, and get dinner and groceries. But they’ve also made things feel harder and much more alienating. (Just ask a Gen Zer to make a phone call and see the petrified reaction you get.) It turns out it’s lonely in the digital echo chamber.

So, How Does This Relate to Vacation?

Well, to take a few examples, consider the current destination bachelor/ette party or 30th birthday phenomena — or any similar vacation where every detail is pre-planned, staged, coordinated, and photographed (too often with highly disposable props). See, also, the highly curated bucket list destination trip where every moment of the day is scheduled to the nth degree. We get it that such meticulous manufacturing leaves little room for mistakes, confusion, or discomfort, and that this can be reassuring, especially in a foreign destination. But it also leaves little room for spontaneity, discovery, and local connection.

We’ll even go so far as to add misadventure to the list, because some of our best travel memories come from unexpected experiences. An extremely long wait for a boat to Yelapa resulted in us finding the most delicious empanada of our lives (and we had time to watch it get made by hand). When our truck broke down in the Nicaraguan countryside, we witnessed a local bicycle repair shop owner perform miracles with an inner tube. Ditching a trip to Hungary (after forgetting to get a visa) opened us up to a weekend romance on a Swiss train. We could not have planned it better.

As for the real-time social media posting we seem addicted to, yes, it’s about sharing the great things we’re doing and seeing on vacation — fun! — but it is also about seeking outside validation from people who are not even on the trip with us. Can we all admit that this behavior is a little crazy? We can. We have! (But we’re also having a hard time breaking the habit.)

If we are ONLY looking for ways to make things as neat and tidy and frictionless as possible, to self-soothe and numb out with seamless service and social media dopamine hits, it will be that much harder to have a vacation where we are not constantly looking for seamless service and social media dopamine hits.

What Can We Do About It?

It may be easier said than done to get off our apps and into our physical lives, but here are ten strategies to consider while traveling:

• Mute your text threads from home.

• While you’re at it, mute every notification. Breaking news can break without you.

• Stop asking ChatGPT to plan your travel itinerary.

• Use a paper map or an atlas when you’re riding shotgun in the car.

• If you can’t not make a Google spreadsheet, allow for at least one meal based solely on a local’s recommendation.

• 1000 bonus points if you leave whole days on the itinerary open.

• Ditch Uber and take public transportation.

• Sign up to do something explicitly outside your comfort zone.

• Make sure your money stays local (mom and pop over global chains).

• Continually choose the more sustainable path.

Why Are We Doing This Again?

To build resilience and perseverance. Because we can do hard things. We can be annoyed and pivot when the unexpected happens. It feels really good when we come through the other side. And isn’t that a much more gratifying dopamine hit?