Are we less adventurous than we used to be?
By Fleur
@Fleura (30330)
United Kingdom
October 12, 2021 5:33am CST
I came across this article in an old newspaper lining a drawer.
It is dated May 1939 and describes a planned trip by a woman named Rose Marie Hodgson, who intended to travel around Germany (circling around the outside of it that is) by car to find out the state of the area. She intended to drive about 7,000 miles in a borrowed car, in preparation for which she had been learning to drive.
The article states ‘I want to stop by the wayside and talk to people and find out what they’re thinking about things, and how they live, and maybe get asked to meals so that I’ll see their houses and eat their kind of food’.
She seems quite adventurous, even by modern standards. In fact perhaps rather more than modern standards. I wonder if this trip came off?
All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.
7 people like this
7 responses
@LadyDuck (471255)
• Switzerland
12 Oct 21
May be the rules were less strict in the past. Someone without at least 2 years of driving experience would not even get a rental car and most countries now refuse that you use the car in another country. I think we were more free in the past than in our days. Not to mention the road traffic and less criminality.
2 people like this
@Fleura (30330)
• United Kingdom
12 Oct 21
@LadyDuck I'm sure it still is. There is just a lot more media attention when things go wrong. But in general most people are attacked/murdered by people they know, most frequently their partners or family members. Statistically it's much safer to travel alone than to stay at home with people you know!
1 person likes this
@wilsongoddard (7291)
• United States
13 Oct 21
I think that changing rules, tightening borders, overpopulation, and the sense of no real frontiers left to explore sort of contribute to hemming people in. At the time that she proposed doing this, driving rules were not as strict, and there weren't student loans and mortgages weighing people down.
People do still do things like this, though. The rise of digital nomads and "van life" speak to that. It just doesn't feel like "grand" adventures anymore.
1 person likes this
@JESSY3236 (19914)
• United States
12 Oct 21
cool. Yeah that would be adventurous. It would be interesting if she completed the trip.
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