Long distance travelling has always contained an element of adventure, but even more so in the past when communications with friends and family back home weren’t always as readily available or cheap as they are now.
Postcards and letters are perennially popular ways of keeping in touch, but they only allow the sender to make a series of statements, or ask questions that can only be answered by the recipient in a similar vein. So, how did past adventurers and the early tourists communicate with their loved ones back home?
During the 19th century setting out to travel to foreign lands would effectively mean a total loss of communication until such times the traveller returned from their arduous journey, probably some months or even years later. Letters may have been sent, but because they took so long to arrive a traveller had often moved on to their next location by the time they were received.
Although from the 1870s onward widespread use of the telegraph allowed more timely communication, it was an extremely expensive way to keep in touch and was used only if absolutely necessary. However, like letters and postcards, telegraphs and telegrams could only inform the recipient, who would then have to respond in kind.
Step into the 20th century and the telegraph gave way to the telephone as the preferred way for travellers to keep in touch. For the first time travellers to faraway places could call home, if they had a combination of time, patience, money and the ability to hunt down a public telephone.
Over the past 25 years the mobile phone has become widely available, but although calls made to persons in the same country are now reasonably priced, keeping in touch this way on a regular basis from abroad is fairly expensive. Until recently, that was the only way for the vast majority of travellers to keep up to date with happenings back home.
But now, in the 21st Century we can merely sit at our computer and within seconds conduct
free video calls with our nearest and dearest in far-flung parts of the world; all that is needed is a lap-top, a webcam with working microphone and internet access. Providing the person you wish to contact has the same or a similar set-up at their end, then two-way communication is easy, and certainly a world away from the challenges travellers from a previous age faced.
