Do you remember when you got excited when you got to the airport? How thrilling it was when your boarding time was called on the loudspeaker and you made your way to the plane? I don’t know about you, but it’s been a long time since I got excited about flying, especially long flights. And this was before COVID! But the news about the future of travel and how much better it’s going to me, has got me excited and ready to pack a bag!
I mentioned several exciting things to come in the first part of this blog about the future of travel. Click here to read it!
- Airborne motorcycles
By 2050, tourists will be able to hire airborne motorcycles to transport them from place to place. French aviation giant, Lazareth, has already developed a flying motorbike, LMV 496, which flies for ten minutes so far. Sounds very Mission Impossible!
- Jet packs
Yes, are expected to be in play by 2050. Martin Aircraft has already developed one but it still needs work. Again, very Mission Impossible!
- Robotic flight attendants
No more snippy flight attendants on board! Service bots will cater to your needs on the plane and in airports, hotels, and as tour guides as early as 2030. Robots are already being used to check in passengers at Japan’s Kansai Airport. NY’s La Guardia already has security robots. Geneva Airport has a bad drop bot, Leo. Japan’s Henna Hotel (see image) is already using a mostly robotic staff.
- SciFi Passports
Goodbye physical passports! First stamped in 1920, they will be phased out by 2050. Keep your old ones with your audio cassette and 8-track collection. In the future, travelers will be identified using biometrics (retina and fingerprint scans). That is definitely Mission Impossible!
- Goodbye travel phrase books and apps
No more struggling to ask “Where is the nearest toilet?” Soon translation apps and phrase books will be sold in used bookstores only. Most likely, schools won’t even teach foreign languages. Instead, travelers will speak into devices or wear gadgets in their ears that will translate words in an instant.
- Mars here we come
Billionaire Elon Musk promises we will colonize Mars by 2050. His company, SpaceX, is planning to launch its first crewed mission to Mars in 2024! He envisions a self-sustaining domed city being built on the Red Planet within thirty years of his initial launch.
- Big changes ahead for hotels
With climate change, look for more underwater hotels in the future. Eco-friendly pop-up hotels will be part of a lower-impact tourism outlook for the future, such as Living the Till (a portable treetop hotel). Hotels will offer “dream menus.” Yep, guests will be able to program their bed to choose what they want to dream! The beds will have other options, as well, such as monitoring your health or providing subliminal messaging to provide inspiration or teach a new skill. Whoa!
- Supersonic Travel
No time to watch that movie! Soon passengers will delight in getting on a plane in China and getting off the plane in New York City in just one hour! Space Transportation Company is building a supersonic jet they refer to as a “rocket with wings” that will be used for long haul flights and space tourism. It will be able to travel 4,400 miles (7,000km) in sixty minutes. They expect it to be operational by 2024 and their first test flight crewed space craft journey by 2030. United Airlines has already ordered fifteen supersonic planes (from Denver based company, Boom) to begin transporting passengers in 2029. Travelers can leave New York and be in London in 3+ hours. Another company (Atlanta-based Hermeus) is developing a plane to take passengers from New York to Paris in just 90 minutes! And there are lots more exciting aviation developments, including a hypersonic plane that will transport travelers from London, England to Sydney, Australia in less than four hours!
- Virtual Vacations
As I have long predicted, virtual travel will be the norm in the future. There are already so many ways to achieve it and the options keep growing every month. Feelreal is the world’s first multi-sensory mask, meaning it not only takes you to a place or experience visually, but also replicates smells, vibrations, hot and cold winds, water mist, and more! It is already on the market for sale.
- The future of travel looks all right
So even if all these things don’t happen according to their projected timelines or exactly as anticipated, they will still be huge achievements and such good news for travelers worldwide. So after the last couple of years, many of us may have been envisioning the future traveling far less, but now it may be quite the opposite. We’ll be able to cut travel times drastically and be way more comfortable in the process. I will keep you posted on the future of travel, travel trends, travel warnings, and everything else you need to know before you go.
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Terrance Zepke studied Journalism at the University of Tennessee and later received a Master's Degree in Mass Communications from the University of South Carolina. She has studied Parapsychology at the renowned Rhine Research Center. She began her career as a freelance writer and photographer, ... 
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