A Future Fuelled By Travel?
Every Sunday I call my mum in Canada for a long chat. These calls give us a chance to catch up on the past week and explore whatever topics happen to come up as our conversation meanders along. Given my current employment situation, she asked about the various projects I’m working on to earn money and whether I’ve had any recent job interviews.
As of last week, I’ve “earned” a grand total of 14円 ($0.10 USD) online this month and haven’t met with any companies about steady work. I told her as much, and she followed up with a surprisingly insightful question:
Will you be able to find anything that AI won’t ruin for you?
I found it a little funny that she used the word “ruin” when describing AI’s effect on my employment prospects, especially since she’s heard the same marketing hype I have. But looking honestly at my strengths, hobbies, and interests, she’s not wrong: AI has touched – and in many cases replaced – just about everything I enjoy doing. People have been using large language models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek to augment or replace writing for years. Photo-realistic images can be created with a prompt. Software development is being offloaded to systems trained on decades of knowledge from Stack Overflow and GitHub. And to rub salt in the wound, self-driving cars continue to improve to the point where governments may soon start mandating them.
The four things I truly enjoy – writing, photography, coding, and driving – can all be done by machines. Whether machines can do these things better is beside the point. Most people don’t care about “better”; they want fast, cheap, and “good enough”.
So what do I have left to offer the world in exchange for money? Bills won’t pay themselves, after all.
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past year. While many of the things I can do will remain human-driven for a few more years, the direction is clear: people are expected to lean heavily on generative AI to do more with less. In the near future, most white-collar jobs will revolve around managing AI tools rather than doing the work. Whether this shift is good or bad no longer matters – it’s happening. The number of traditional office jobs will drop as AI systems handle more tasks “well enough”.
But people still need jobs. We need something to do with our time. So what’s left?
One area with long-term potential is face-to-face work: senior care, education, healthcare – jobs that are fundamentally human. AI may assist in these fields, but they’re still centered around people. However, another possibility has been taking shape in my mind: a career involving travel – a line of work built around people having both time and disposable income.
If people do end up with more free time, travel could see a small boom. This will, of course, depend on finances, but travel doesn’t need to be international or expensive to be rewarding. Over the past few weeks, Ayumi and I have visited seven prefectures, spending less than $100 per trip. We camp, bring our own food, beverages, batteries, and blankets. Our main expense is gasoline. Later this month, we’re planning a four-day, 1,500km trip to Kōchi Prefecture. Gas will cost about $100, food less than $25, and the campsites are all free municipal parks. This isn’t just frugality – it’s efficiency. Travel can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be.
Maybe this is something I can offer the world: encouragement to explore without breaking the bank.
I shared some of these thoughts with my mum, who understandably didn’t sound too convinced. Still, as I consider what career path I might pursue next, it makes sense to combine what I know with what I’m still learning. My most successful online projects have all been travel-related. My most popular blog posts and 𝕏 updates? Also travel-related. Clearly, this is something people care about – and it’s a space where I can use my favourite skillsets while building new ones.