TECHNOLOGY & TRAVEL
In 1974 when I was a student in London, I marveled at the ease of getting around the city on the Underground. The routes were color-coded and easy to navigate with maps in every station. Four years later when I moved to New Yok City, I quickly learned the subway system set up on a similar geometric grid to the city streets of Manhattan. Of course, it helped that I could read and speak English.
Fast-forward fifty years, I find myself in Prague which has an amazing old fashion cable tram system, not to mention buses, trains and subways – all for free if you are under 7 or 70+ The trams are the best Hop-On-Hop-Off city-tour you can imagine for exploring this beautiful riverside city with architecturally stunning buildings more than 400 years old.
However, the stops are hard to pronounce, and the trams crisscross each other in an inexplicable manner. Thankfully, due to the previously unimaginable, technological advances in 50 years, all you need is your smart phone and Google Maps to tell you which tram to take, in which direction, when it will arrive, how many stops to your destination and all in your own language.
And not only tram rides, you can also ask, “where is the nearest grocery store” and get the same accurate directions via walking, tram, bus or Uber! I know we managed in other ways before, but I am very grateful to my AI phone-friend “Gigi” for all her help getting around with a confident air and a skip in my step despite not knowing the local language or the geography, all while listening to my Spotify favorites on my Air pods.