Picture this. It’s the year 2045. You, your husband, your toddler and your seven-year-old are off on holiday.
You pack up your car and set off for the airport – cruising at an altitude of between 10,000-18,000 feet to beat traffic. Once you’ve landed and found a parking space, you head to check in, with your smart luggage following you there , and carrying the seven-year-old, whose legs are suddenly ‘tired’.
Once you arrive at your destination, you check your watch and discover your hydration and fatigue levels are fairly high, so instead of seizing the day, you decide to have a quiet evening instead, opting for room service. Tomorrow, your adventure starts, including an AR guided tour for both kids adjusted to their interests (Ancient Romans and dinosaurs, respectively) while you do the real life thing, taking in all the local sites with no wails of ‘I’m bored’. A week flies by and you’re ready to head home, fully rested and content that there are no travel-related stresses awaiting you.
1.Flying Cars
According to the oracle that is Back to the Future Part II, we should have had flying cars for at least a decade by now. After all, Doc Brown took Marty McFly for a cruise in his flying Delorean back in 2015. And while we might hear more about driverless cars in the news, there have been developments in the flying vehicle sphere. In the US, there’s Alef Aeronautics, which is working on a car that will take off vertically before transitioning into forward flight mode (this is easier than if it took off horizontally like an airplane, as it would need a runway), with people already putting in orders for the pre-sales. Experts predict that ride-sharing apps like Lyft or Uber might be a more affordable option though – especially for short hops like from the UK to France, for example.
2. Smart Luggage
Forget suitcases that charge your phone or tell you where they are when they get lost. The next generation of smart luggage can literally follow you around, allowing you to go completely hands-free. One prototype on the market, the Ovis by ForwardX (£668), has clever obstacle-avoidance technology, so that it can follow you everywhere. Another in development, the Travelmate, can also calculate how much it weighs, saving any anxiety at check-in, and self-locks if it gets stolen so that thieves can’t access your belongings. Perhaps the handiest feature for families? Smart suitcases that your children can ride on, like the Airwheel SE3S (£637) – think of them as driver-less Trunkis…
3. AR Guided Tours
4. Space Travel
Soon it won’t just be Katy Perry et all who are heading to outer space. Currently, Blue Origin won’t take anyone under 18 on one of their trips, and they are prohibitively expensive anyway, but according to former chief astronaut at NASA, Chris Cassidy, space travel for families isn’t far away. Explaining that international air travel used to be possible for only the super wealthy, he said he believes that the price will come down as it becomes more routine. Speaking on NewsNation in 2024, he said: “At some point, in the next few decades, you might say ‘where shall we go for Christmas vacation?’ and your kids will say ‘let’s go to the space station’.”
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5. Smart Trackers
We already rely on our smart watches to tell us how many footsteps we hit dragging the kids around Disneyland, but soon we’ll be able to wear tech that alerts us to when we’re feeling dangerously tired, dehydrated, stressed or fatigued. You might think that a lot of that is just common sense, but actually, wouldn’t it be nice to know why your seven-year-old is looking especially grumpy, and to do something about it before a temper tantrum strikes? The idea is that through AI technology, a tracker can update your itinerary according to how you feel, diverting you from say, a long queue for an exhibition to a restaurant booking instead.
Any Questions or Tips to add?