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A week at the beach used to cost a week's salary and required zero planning. Now families need spreadsheets, second mortgages, and booking strategies just to leave town.
Until the 1990s, most American kids navigated their neighborhoods solo, walking miles to school through all weather. Today's parents face legal threats for letting children walk two blocks unaccompanied.
The family station wagon packed with snacks and paper maps once defined American summer. Now we fly over the adventure to get to the resort faster.
In 1965, driving across America meant paper maps, mystery diners, unreliable motels, and absolutely no guarantee of what was around the next bend. Today's road trip is comfortable, optimized, and almost entirely predictable. We gained a lot — but ask anyone who did it the old way, and they'll tell you something got left behind on the shoulder of Route 66.