The Future of Travel

Conde Nast Traveler
Updated
Smaller hotel rooms, virtual reality—and yes, robots.

Everything you know about exploring the world is about to change. Whether you’re navigating a foreign airport with the help of an anthropomorphic robot that speaks 19 languages or flying the preposterously comfortable Airbus A350 XWB to Helsinki and suffering zero jet lag, travel is getting undeniably better. Which is probably why, in 2015, we saw more than a billion people taking off for business, pleasure, or both. As we enter this second-wave golden age, we teamed up with our future-obsessed colleagues at Wired to forecast where the travel industry is headed as fierce competition (Airbnb, we see you), smart design (200-square-foot hotel rooms that don’t feel like 200 square feet), and even marketing gambits like Icelandair’s genius layover program continue to transform the way we see the world.

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