Skip to Content

Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.

Map of the world

USA Today's 25 Best Travel Changes in the Last Quarter Century

In celebration of USA Today turning 25, the editors of the American newspaper are publishing a variety of top 25 lists. This week, they tackle the "25 pivotal changes that transformed the way we travel."

Want to take a guess what they are?

Well, number one on the list is something that we all personally use quite often: online booking. I can't even remember how we bought tickets before. Didn't we have to telephone the airlines or something like that? I know I booked a lot of my tickets pre-internet with STA travel, a student travel agency that is still going strong these days.

The next "pivotal change" that I was most excited about in the last quarter century was certainly the prohibition of smoking onboard an aircraft. I never actually flew on a smoking flight and simply can't imagine what hell that must have been like, but I know how much I'd hate it today and simply can't believe that this life-saving regulation doesn't appear on the USA Today list until number 5.

It's rather fun checking out all 25 "pivotal changes" and realizing that so many of them, like the anti-smoking laws, are so commonplace in the travel industry that it is now hard to imagine life without them. For a quick peek at the top five, check out the list below, or jump on over to USA Today to read about all 25.

1. Online booking
2. TSA airport security
3. Airline e-tickets
4. Roll-aboard luggage
5. Smoke-free flights

Filed under: Airlines, Airports

Search Travel Deals

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

Gadling Features




Categories

Become our Fan on Facebook!

Gadling on Facebook

Tickets, travel guides, hotels & more

Featured Galleries (view all)

Dim Sum Dialogues: Bangkok
Pueblos of New Mexico
Queenstown, NZ
Dim Sum Dialogues: Kowloon Walled City
Fox Glacier
TranzAlpine Railway
In & Around Auckland
Air New Zealand Matchmaking Flight
Bungle Bungle Range

Sponsored Links

Autoblog Green

Daily Finance

Download Squad

Engadget

Joystiq

Luxist

Switched.com

FanHouse

WoW