Greg Lindsay's Blog

December 16, 2015  |  permalink

PopSci’s Futuropolis: The Future of Vacations

Popular Science editors Lindsey Kratochwill and Breanna Draxler invited me to appear on this week’s “Futuropolis” podcast to discuss the future of travel and vacations. As they explain:

Vacations are supposed to be about relaxation and rejuvenation, but anyone who has stood in the crowded lines at an amusement park or waded through the hordes of people at Disneyland knows that this is not always the case. In this episode of Futuropolis–the 12th and final episode of season 1–we set out to see how technology might help shape better vacations in the future.

Transportation will inevitably get faster and cheaper, but we also hope it will be without jet lag. Hotels might transform their own furniture to make your room just the way you like it. And don’t worry–the good ol’ postcard isn’t going anywhere (aside from your Grandma’s mailbox).

With our look back at the Popular Science archives, you can join us in the cockpit of the Concorde in 1973, before the supersonic plane would first carry its commercial passengers.

Beyond these basic improvements, we want to know about some of the loftier goals. We talk space tourism with Phil McAlister, who works with commercial spaceflight at NASA. Virtual reality executive producer Christine Cattano explains how technology can entice and enhance our experiences of a place. And futurist Thomas Frey describes machines that could enable you to relax on a beach, from the comfort of your couch.

But vacations aren’t just about relaxation, they’re also about status, says Greg Lindsay, a researcher, futurist and journalist. He says we’ll soon be inventing destinations with deeper and more authentic experiences than we can even imagine today.

Buckle your seatbelts, loyal listeners.

The complete podcast is embedded above; I appear around the ten-minute mark.

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Greg Lindsay is a generalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker. He is a non-resident senior fellow of the Arizona State University Threatcasting Lab, a non-resident senior fellow of MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative. He was the founding chief communications officer of Climate Alpha and remains a senior advisor. Previously, he was an urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, where he explored the implications of AI and augmented reality at urban scale.

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