Posted on 10/20/2017 4:18:45 PM PDT by NRx
The 21st century sort of snuck up on us, didn't it?
I got an email just the other day from Norwegian Airlines (which I've flown before) that advertised Boston to Belfast,round trip,for about $300.Befast-London (round trip) is something like $30.
About halfway thru the book is several pages (186-189) on icebergs and ice fields. A year later, Titanic hit one!
Way cool ! Thank you sir.
May I request that, if you should happen on any other interesting antiquarian books, please think of pinging me.
Exactly so. A hundred years ago, a European vacation would be literally a once in a lifetime experience for the average American. In contrast, I've visited over two dozen countries in the last thirty years ranging from Iceland to China to South Africa...and I'm firmly middle class.
I'll be going to Thailand on a food tour in January. I'll fly business class on points, and the entire two-week vacation will be under $2,000. The 21st Century has its advantages.
Interesting article about the world’s largest passenger ship, the Olympic, in the January 1911 issue of Popular Mechanics...
Should have taken you right to the article - here...
I'll bet it would cost a *lot* less that $672 round trip from Seattle or Denver.I can't imagine it being *too* expensive getting from Idaho to either of those cities.
Ditto.I'm not even within 100 light years of being "rich" and if you take a minute to click on my profile you'd see that I've seen a fair portion of the world...all leisure travel (my job never required foreign travel...except to Canada).
I just looked it up at Google Flights. Denver to London, Jan. 20th to Jan. 29th. $352 round trip on Icelandair.
There's a 25 hour layover in Reykjavik on the way back though, so you have to spend a day in Iceland. Ah, first world problems....
A quick note on comparing travel expenses. First inflation. There are a number of ways for calculating inflation but the most conservative that I have found suggests that it would take a bit over $20 in 2017 money to equal the purchasing power of $1 in 1910. Secondly the higher cost for travel was partly caused by increased expenses in labor, so many things today can be done without much work. In those days even the most routine things were very labor intensive. No microwaves for precooked meals on an airplane. No vacuum cleaners or washing machines. Even middle class households typically had to employ one or two domestics to keep up with all of the work. Also there was the amount of time involved in travel. If one can fly to Europe today in around five or six hours, in those days it involved an ocean voyage of not less than five days! And five days was only if you traveled on the fastest express liners. Most people did not. The average Atlantic crossing would run 7-10 days. That’s a week + of cabin occupancy, meals, entertainment (such as there was back then) and the service of the cabin stewards. Depending on what class you were traveling in this could be like staying in a grand hotel for a week. And of course there was the cost of the ship’s crew and officers and fuel for the crossing.
Expensive, no, but Denver’s 1100 miles away. Seattle’s only 320, so there’s that... Let’s face it, this is the boondox around heah... ;-)
I wanted to thank you for the post. I was feeling sick last night. Got up. Saw this thread. And killed a cheerful 45 minutes reading until my stomach settled enough to lie down again. Oddly fun, reading about travel in 1910.
bookmark
The smartphone itself is something no one had a hundred years ago. Love it or hate it it can do so many things undreamed of back then and it has become almost universal. Yes there are drawbacks to it but judicious use of it can be a boon. One can even read FR with it....something else that didn’t exist 100 years ago.
I've heard it said that the typical smartphone of today has more computing capability than was found on board Apollo 11.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.