Turn off the Internet, turn off exploring?

The train rise from Köln (Cologne) to Frankfurt, Germany is so far much more interesting - visually - than other routes we've been on (and awake for) this trip. There are mountains, small towns, and a nice winding river that we've followed most of the way.

But, unlike Thalys, Bahn doesn't offer wifi. Which means I don't know what mountains, which towns, or what river I'm next to.

In a world where the information follows is around in our back pockets, what does that do to old-fashioned exploring?

What is new exploring?

Before leaving for my trip, my boss passed on some stories of when he lived in Budapest 20ish years ago. He had books, maps, train schedules and was gathering them all up at home when he realized, that isn't how traveling works anymore. Britton and I aren't carrying big, awkward maps or heavy guide books. It's all in our phones - even this blog post is being typed letter by letter with my two sturdy thumbs.

We're left to speculate uses for things instead of immediately asking Google, "what is that?" We have to memorize directions while we have a wifi signal because we can't refer to our little blue GPS dot when we don't have a working GPS phone.

Some of that has been fun - in Amsterdam there was no possible way for us to remember all of these new sounds so we made associations. 'Turn left on lederhosen, then right on Lichtenstein.'

But as a child of technology, I do tend to feel stunted when I don't have that connection to the info that the Internet provides. It's a conundrum: technology simultaneously moving us forward but holding us back. What's left to wonder, what's left to explore?