Remember?

Not that long ago, travel meant being almost completely out of touch with friends and family back home. Maybe a postcard or two from each trip would be the only communication. Now, with camera phones and worldwide mobile internet, it's become easy, and pretty much commonplace, for travelers to instantly share their experiences, in high resolution full color, sound and even video, with others.

Though it is wonderful to be able to stay so richly in touch, it does kind of take some of the mystique and romance out of the travel experience. Sometime yesterday afternoon, on the island of Maui, Kimbie and the Texas Hawaii 2010 group traversed through a time warp, journeying back to a world without cell phones and internet, back to a time when travel meant being away, really away and out of touch. In other words, they have, for a couple of days, completely escaped from AT&T's coverage area and we haven't had a single text message, picture or phone call. It's appropriate that the place they're staying has the most rustic accommodations of the whole trip.

Tomorrow, they'll be heading on down the coast to Hana and back to the modern world of broadband mobile Internet. But it's kind of nice that for a little while these young people, who have been online since before they could read, will experience what it's like to be fully immersed in the real world instead of watching some of it on a screen.