Time Travel: The Way We Used to Go

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How they traveled in 1885. (Photo: National Library of Ireland / Flickr Commons)

By Becky Cheang

We’re so used to hopping on a plane and emerging half a day later on the other side of the globe that it’s easy to forget it wasn’t always thus. Way, way, way back in the day, at the turn of the last century, traveling was more dangerous, less comfortable, and much slower.

Lighter-than-air dirigibles, overcrowded steamboats, rickety tramways: It was a trial-and-error age of transportation innovations. And how magical, new, and exciting it must have been. The pioneers who first saw what was on the other side of that big mountain had an experience we’ll never have. Until, of course, we start zooming to Mars.

Here’s a chronological salute to a century of travel, with extra nostalgia for the early days.

1885

A Walsh Royal Mail and Day Car (top photo) in Sligo, Ireland. Before buses, horse-drawn coaches transported both mail and people. Ballina, Bundoran, Enniskillen, Ballyshannon, and Roscommon were popular day-trip destinations.

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(Photo: Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office Commons / Flickr Commons)

1900

Grubb’s Tramway in Tasmania, Australia.

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(Photo: State Library of Queensland / Flickr Commons)


1907

Chinese growers shipping bananas along Tully River in Queensland, Australia.

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(Photo: State Library of New South Wales / Flickr)

1908

Dirigible over Tamarama in New South Wales, Australia.

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(Photo: SMU Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library / Flickr Commons)

1910s

Southern Pacific Railroad’s No. 2800 observation car.

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(Photo: Australian National Maritime Museum / Flickr Commons)

1910

Passengers aboard an ocean liner.

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(Photo: SDASM Archives / Flickr Commons)

1915

Aviator Art Smith in a Harley-Davidson Baby Cup race car built for board racing by Al Maggini and Dud Perkins at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

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(Photo: Australian National Maritime Museum / Flickr Commons)

1925

Eighteen-footer vessels on Sydney Harbour.

(Photo: SDASM Archives / Flickr Commons)

1928

British journalist Lady Drummond-Hay embarks the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin in Los Angeles. This air ship was the first to circumnavigate the world in 1929.

(Photo: SDASM Archives / Flickr Commons)

1930

Flying along Na Pali coast, on the west side of Kauai Island, Hawaii.

Photo: Collectie Spaarnestad for Nationaal Archief / Flickr Commons

1951

Globetrotter Mr. Willink and his overloaded moped in front of St. Bavokerk Church on Grote Markt Square in Haarlem, The Netherlands. (Mr. Willink, whoever you are, we love you.)

(Photo: National Library of Ireland / Flickr Commons)

1954

Travelers in their decorated caravan en route to the annual Cahirmee Horse Fair at Buttevant in County Cork, Ireland.

1962

People, trailers, and a Coca-Cola machine at an Airstream rally.

Photo: Art Hupy for University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections / Flickr Commons

(Photo: Patricia D. Duncan for U.S. National Archives / Flickr Commons)

1974

Bing the King, a traveling organ player at the annual Flint Hills Rodeo at Cottonwood Falls, Kansas.

(Photo: Jimmy Forsyth for Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums / Flickr Commons)

1986

Madame Smith’s caravan at The Hoppings, an annual fair in Newcastle, England.

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