Modern travel is a marvel. Oh, we complain about it; I certainly do. The oblivious idiots one runs across in airports and while sealed in an aluminum can at 35,000 feet; the dry air on airliners, the pain of going through security, the cost, the fatigue.
But it's still a sign of the amazing modern era we live in. Consider this: After attending CPAC 2025, my wife and I on Sunday woke up in National Harbor, Maryland. We lounged around the hotel room until noon before departing and slept last night in our bed in Alaska. Consider how long that transcontinental journey would have taken even a century ago, much less through most of human history.
For the vast majority of our history, most people lived and died within a mile or two of where they were born. Travel just wasn't an option for most people; it was undertaken only when some calamity intervened, as travel was difficult, expensive, and dangerous. One might encounter roving bandits, unfriendly troops, and diseases to which they lacked natural immunity. They had to deal with people that they may not understand, with cultural practices that were foreign to them, and behaviors acceptable to them may well be murderously offensive a few hundred miles from the home the travelers left.
The first European settlers drove across the North American continent in wagons, mostly drawn by plodding oxen. The beautiful teams of matched horses you see drawing wagons on TV and in movies didn't happen. Horses would die trying to pull a wagon through the dry heat and poor forage of much of the countryside those pilgrims crossed, but the oxen, moving at about the pace of a man having a leisurely stroll, just kept moving. Those pilgrims also faced dangers, including hostile natives, dangerous wildlife from rattlesnakes to grizzly bears, disease, roving bandits (again), and the added fun of possible starvation. Going from, say, Pennsylvania to Oregon was a journey that required months.
Ships changed international travel a lot — but those journeys were still long and fraught. Still, you have to admire the grit of people like my great-great grandfather, Johanne Riesse, the most recent of my ancestors to come to America. He went from a small town in Bavaria to Hamburg, on a ship to New York, then in a wagon to Wisconsin — in 1850, accompanied by his wife and ten children. That journey, again, likely took months. But in the continent itself, people were still limited to wagons drawn by beasts of burden.
The advent of railroads changed a lot. Now, the traveler was protected from the worst of the dangers, and traveling from Boston to San Francisco, for instance, only took days. That stayed the case for a long time, from before the Civil War to the post-World War 2 explosion of air travel. My Dad was fond of describing two such trips in that period, the first in 1944, when Dad was attending a military training course in Yuma, Arizona, when his mother died suddenly. The Red Cross gave him a train ticket, and the Army gave him ten days' leave. He spent over half of that time on trains, going from Yuma to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sitting and sleeping on a hard wooden bench in a hot, stuffy wooden passenger car. The second journey was later, from Yuma to Lowry Army Airfield in Denver in a C-47 cargo plane. That took most of a day, hammering along in an unpressurized cargo plane driven by two giant radial piston engines; Dad described it as akin to "being inside a steel bucket of bolts with a giant shaking it." Dad's accommodation was a folding canvas jump seat, and if he hadn't brought along his food and drink, he would have gone hungry and thirsty.
At least he didn't have to worry about roving bandits.
See Related: A Latter-Day Travel Odyssey: From Alaska to CPAC
The Wonderfulness of CPAC - a Firsthand Experience
So, yes, travel today can be a pain. Dealing with the airlines, the security theater, all of it's a hassle. But we modern Americans enjoy a freedom of movement, powered by our modern technological lifestyle, that is unparalleled in human history. Any of our ancestors, from any of the time periods described here, would have marveled at the ease, comfort, and speed at which modern American bound across our continent — and to other continents. Best of all, we get home again just as quickly and easily.
When we got home from CPAC, it was nearly 1 AM. We put the truck in the garage, got our bags out of the truck, and started to walk over to the house — then we stopped. Somewhere out in the bush to the east, a lone wolf was howling. We listened to him on that still, cold Alaska night for a few minutes. I told my wife, "That's Alaska, welcoming us home."
Yes, modern travel can be a pain. Yes, traveling from Alaska adds an element of time. But I wouldn't give up on either.
