Page 8 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL EATING IBERIA

RON & MARY’S

EDITOR’SNOTE

THE GAME CHANGER

emember way back when travelers carried And no online reviews. User reviews revolution-
maps books, paperback guides and traveler’s ized the hospitality industry. It put power into the
Rchecks, and consulted travel agents to book hands of the once powerless traveler. Reviews
flights and hotels? Do you remember lugging a heavy marginalized tourist traps and exposed shady opera-
camera bag around to get those once-in-a-lifetime tions,whilerewardingbusinessesacrossthetravelin-
shots? In those early days making a call from London dustry that were honest and provided a superior
was done with a fist full of coins in a red phone booth product.
and finding a good restaurant was a crapshoot. You In another very “Star Trek” kind of game-changer,
couldn’tevenbesurethetaxiyouhiredcouldfindyour our phones are becoming translations devices. Com-
hotel. municating is as easy as speaking into the phone and
No denying, the internet and wireless technology having it resaid in English or another language.
radically changed the way we travel. Our smartphones also keep us connected virtu-
In 1991 we wrote “The Multimedia Casebook,” allyeverywhereintheworld.IintendtowatchtheSan
publishedbyVanNostrandReinhold,whichexamined DiegoAztecsplaywhilecruisingtheIndianOcean.We
the remarkable birth and innovation of multimedia can monitor and manage our homes and even watch
andCDROMs.Inhundredsofinterviews,noonemen- our pets from thousands of miles away. We can check
tioned the internet or cell phones that have pushed bank accounts and keep bill pay current. And when a
aside CDs as the platforms for interactivity and com- problem arises with a cruise or a flight, we hear from
munications. the company involved.
Two years earlier, we lugged around a ten-pound For us journalists, our phone replaces thousands
very expensive cell phone known as a brick that had of dollars worth of heavy fragile camera and video
an antenna with a suction cup for the car roof for re- equipment. Our photos and videos automatically up-
ception. You could enjoy a whopping one hour of talk loaded to the cloud so we don’t have to worry about
before it needed a long recharge. It was cool but im- losing or misplacing them. And the quality is as good
practical for everyday use - and for travel. or better for our work than my SLR. If you don’t be-

Today, we can’t imagine life, especially our travel lieve me, take a look at the Discover Iberia feature in
life, without the internet or very smart wireless this issue. All the photography was done on our cell
phones. No Airbnb, not Uber, no Google Maps, no Trip phones.
Advisor, PayPal or Booking.com. Ron & Mary James
Publishers & Editors

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