Travel Connections: Tourism, Technology and Togetherness in a Mobile World

As interactive travelers use mobile phones and the Internet to upload travel journals, post photos and videos, network with other travelers or navigate through tourist spaces, they are rewriting the social and spatial significance of travel while also pointing to broader shifts in how we use mobile technologies in everyday life to engage with each other and the world while on the move. This book offers a detailed and unified account of interactive travelers#xE2;#xAC;" lived experiences of travel and technology use, and an ethnographically-informed analysis of the social, cultural and spatial implications of the intersection between travel and technology. Among the innovative concepts and emerging trends this book explores are: interactive travel, mobile sociality, blended geographies, smart tourism, the mediated gaze, #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;following#xE2;#xAC;" as a social relation, flashpacking, Couchsurfing, travel blogging, mobile conviviality, (re)enchanting the beaten path, getting lost in a world of ubiquitous computing, and unplugging.