In the wake of last week’s foiled plot to blow up airplanes traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States, Simon Calder steps back in today’s Belfast Telegraph and examines what the future of travel might look like. Some conclusions: Environmentally-responsible travel will gain popularity, guidebook sales will fall as electronic distribution of information rises and people will consider themselves permanent travelers. “The very concept of a vacation is beginning to disappear for some people, who have latched on to low-cost flying as a way to live double lives and can be considered to be on a permanent holiday,” he writes. 

Of course, security checks will also evolve.

The future has already arrived at some airports—notably Amsterdam Schiphol, where frequent flyers can get through passport control in the blink of an eye, thanks to the Privium scheme that scans the irises of their eyes.

“By 2016, the traditional passport, paper visas and printed tickets could be replaced by a credit-card sized ID containing a microchip that stores all personal travel information, from ticket and visa information to fingerprint scans,” speculates Britain’s biggest holiday company, Thomson. And a quick bit of surgery may speed progress still further: “Frequent travellers may even have the option to implant this microchip underneath their fingertips to further reduce travel time.”

Calder also points out that the “trend is away from beach holidays.” He quotes Peter Burrell of Exodus, who says that “experiential travel” will become more popular. “The world is a smaller place now, so what you do there is more important than the location,” Burrell says. “People favour holidays such as learning to cook in Vietnam, or cycling and trekking. People want new ways of seeing the same things.”