Holiday price comparison site TravelSupermarket has asked children aged six to 13 years old to describe their ideal holiday of the future and brought their dreams to life through a series of illustrations. One day, their dreams could be a reality says Futurologist Dr Ian Pearson!
Holiday price comparison site, TravelSupermarket, has teamed up with a group of school children aged six to 13 years old and leading futurologist Dr Ian Pearson to reveal what the perfect holiday of the future looks like according to children and whether these predictions are likely to become a reality. You can view all the predictions here.
Out-of-this-world holidays:
What if beach holidays of the future had clear blue seas so you could see all of the fish living below, people travelled around via underground tunnels, and robots patrolled the sands serving Fanta and ice cream on demand?
This is eight-year-old Lillie’s ideal holiday of the future – and her travel aspirations may not even be that far-fetched, as Dr Pearson explains: “Tunnelling technology is developing, so we may travel underground much more often to reduce surface congestion.”
While Lillie is happy to chill on a beach as long as the robots have the ice cream covered, Al (nine years old) has a slightly more futuristic, long-haul holiday destination in mind: “My holiday would be on a floating island in the sky, travelling around the world. I would get any food from vending machines and I would swim in the sky”.
Ten-year-old Oli has a similar idea as he explains his dream to explore Space on holiday: “In the future, I want to go in a rocket to space to see if aliens are real and I’ll be able to do it because you can travel there soon with the Virgin Media man”.
In fact, of the 150 six to 13 year olds asked, 26% expected rockets and hovercrafts, 32% expected jet packs and 60% expected flying cars to be a feature of holidays in the future.
Dr Pearson comments: “Rockets, hovercrafts, jet packs and flying cars appear frequently in sci-fi and some real prototypes have appeared in the media, so it isn’t surprising that kids expect to use them. However, when asked whether flying capes were likely to become a form of futurist transport, only 1 in 40 kids agreed, so they are not so easily fooled.”
An under-the-sea adventure:
It seems that Oli is not alone in his fascination with outer space, as nine-year-old Sally’s ideal holiday of the future involves meeting aliens – though these aliens live under the sea: “I’ll swim with the aliens in air bubbles so I can breathe and look at all the pretty fishes down in the deep, deep sea.”
Safari with a twist:
The children were also keen to mix with a whole range of wildlife – animal lover Charlotte, aged nine years old, says: “I would go on a safari to somewhere where all the endangered animals are living happily together and have plenty of food to eat so they don’t have to kill each other. I would like there to be places where I could eat with, and feed the animals too.”
Nine-year-old Joel has a similar fantasy for spending time with the wildlife: “In my future holiday, I would go to a place where there are friendly dinosaurs and they give rides for free.” He continues: “I would eat sweets that aren’t unhealthy and people will travel using teleports, flying cars, jetpacks and hovercrafts.”
Some of these futuristic forms of travel might not be so viable in real life, however, as Dr Pearson explains: “Teleportation for large objects might not be possible at all in the future, so we’re unlikely to see teleporting of people for centuries, if ever. Jet packs are certainly getting better and we might see them more often at concerts or sports events, but it is simply too hard to store the energy needed for long flights in a compact form, so seeing them more often is unlikely.”
Just a few weeks ago, French inventor and former Jet Ski champion Franky Zapata successfully crossed the English Channel on his jet-powered hoverboard, after a failed attempt the month previously. Zapata made the 21 mile crossing between Sangatte in northern France and St Margaret’s Bay in Dover in just 23 minutes.
This use of jet pack technology gives us a glimpse into the future of technology and transport – with Zapata hoping that his invention will one day become a revolutionary piece of military hardware.
The future of holiday transport:
Although dinosaurs and teleportation might be a stretch for holidays taking place any time in the next 100 years, some of these predictions might not be too far off the reality of travel in the future.
Dr Pearson concludes: “In the kids’ lifetimes, virtual travel may well feature heavily, as real travel to the most popular destinations becomes ever more crowded – perhaps the travel by cape isn’t so silly after all. Flying capes could be a good way to travel in the virtual worlds of augmented and virtual reality and these also permit the dream worlds richly populated by fantasy and endangered creatures and aliens, that some of the kids referred to.”
Joey Tyson, Travel Editor at TravelSupermarket, comments: “Children’s minds are an ever-flowing fountain of imagination, so it has been great to get a brief look through their eyes to see what they regard as their perfect holiday of the future.
“Though it’s unlikely holidays of the future will feature underwater aliens, dinosaurs or teleportation, adults can still feel the same excitement when planning their future holidays, if they just try and capture a little of that childlike imagination! Many families like to involve their kids in the planning for a holiday. If the kids are happy, then the adults are happy too.”
