The Grand Tour was intended to educate a young European man who expected to rule. Bush the Younger and Daniel Quayle can still get laughed at on a million TV screens for making mistakes in geography. But they don t have to go . They need a book or CD or videotape. The Hajj is the voyage every Muslim is obliged to take during his life.
Cameras already record electronically and feed through a computer.
But with sight, hearing and somasthetic senses, we will get better and better at showing travel to people who needn t go anywhere. Container technology can move most freight. Fewer human workers get involved. Where we get serious about containing disease, they ll be clothed like hospital attendants. Elsewhere cheap labor isn t cheap if every product must be disinfected.