What will travel look like after the pandemic?

LUGGAGE UNPACKS how international travel has changed down the ages. Adventurers in the 15th-century age of discovery set sail in galleons loaded to the gunwales with supplies for voyages that might take years. Aristocrats on a “grand tour” in the 18th century trekked around Europe for months in horse-drawn carriages packed with trunks, servants and even furniture. The suitcase arrived at the end of the 19th century when spending several weeks abroad became more common for the wealthy. By the 1970s tourists and executives needed to cart the wherewithal for a few nights away through vast airports. And so the wheelie-bag came to symbolise the era of mass travel.

The rise of the wheelie-bag reflects the falling cost and increasing speed of long-distance travel. Cheaper air fares, rising incomes and more leisure time have made foreign trips routine and a holiday abroad accessible to many in the rich world wishing to escape their daily stress. Travel brings new experiences and memories (or moments to capture on Instagram). And if not every mind is broadened, surely few suffer the opposite effect. As Mark Twain put it, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.”