Gadling's weekly roundup pulls together a handful of stories that say a lot about where travel culture was heading in late 2014 — from paperbacks to cruise ships built with social sharing in mind.
First up: gift ideas. Andrew McCarthy, the actor-turned-travel-writer, picked five notable travel books of 2014 for National Geographic. His take is a bit weary — in a Google Maps era, even somewhere as written-about as Provence can feel overdone — but he still found five titles worth wrapping, including new work from Pico Iyer and a story collection edited by Don George, both with Gadling connections. The advice: buy them from an independent bookstore and stuff them into stockings.
On the water, Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas got a lot of press after sailing out of New York in November on a two-day "cruise to nowhere." Conde Nast Traveler's Paul Brady framed the mega-ship as the first cruise vessel essentially designed for the selfie age — packed with tech meant to get passengers photographing and sharing everything. Coverage ranged from sceptical first-person reviews of life on a giant resort ship to video tours of the onboard gadgets.
In the air, two stories raised eyebrows. Flight attendant and novelist Heather Poole weighed in on emotional support animals, cataloguing roosters, pot-bellied pigs, miniature ponies and even five dogs in first class on a single flight — her verdict being that yes, the trend has arguably gone too far, especially for allergic passengers. Meanwhile, Quartz spent six months tracking pilot-friendly Instagram hashtags and found plenty of cockpit photos taken at moments when the rules don't actually allow it. The piece points out the regulations feel outdated — dedicated cameras fine, a phone in airplane mode not — and argues it's time for clearer, modernised rules.
Why does this matter to a traveller? It's a snapshot of travel's growing pains. Ships are now engineered around your Instagram feed, cabin crews are arbitrating whether that emotional-support rooster belongs onboard, and pilots are risking discipline for the perfect window shot. The book roundup is the practical takeaway if you're shopping for a traveller this holiday season.