"The Internet": We seriously doubt that you need to know
what the Internet is! However, there may be a few things you haven't
realized yet about how the Internet can help budget unstructured
exploratory travelers get on airplanes!
One of the primary things the Internet is "about" is, instantaneous
costless worldwide communication-on-demand between individuals. Now
if you just change the word "individuals" to "individual TRAVELERS"
in that sentence, you may begin to see the possibilities!
What instantaneous costless worldwide communication-on-demand among
the community of budget exploratory unstructured travelers means is,
that INFORMATION-SHARING can be used as a major tool in avoiding
the high costs and regimentation imposed upon us by the airlines.
As an example of this, picture yourself Airhitching -- you've signed
up to get across the Atlantic between North America and Europe, or
across the Pacific between North America and Hawaii, and you're
standing at a counter in an airport with your Airhitch® Boarding Code
attempting to board a flight from, say, JFK airport in NYC to
Heathrow Airport in London. But, you're down to 45 minutes before
scheduled departure time and alas the plane appears to be full,
the checkin staff have told you they have checked in all the "regular"
passengers and it appears they don't have a seat for you! So what
do you do? In the pre-Internet world, you either went home (if you
lived in NYC) or tried to find a place to sleep for the night, then
tried to get in touch with the Airhitch® office the next day to find
out what your next steps would be.
But not with the Internet, because you can have an ASP (airport
support person from among your family/friends) in touch with our
chatstaff via cyberchat WHILE
YOU ARE AT THE COUNTER..."coaching" you as to how to proceed,
and there might well be another flight from some other terminal
at JFK that you can catch an hour later, for example, a flight
to Ireland; and with the help of the WorldWideWeb, you and your
ASP can easily find a way to get to London from Ireland for a
few additional dollars' net-cash-outlay!
The above scenario is only one of an infinite number illustrations of
how the 'net binds all of us unstructured exploratory travelers
together so we can use INFORMATION to help LESSEN THE REQUIREMENT
that we have a commitment from an airline to carry us on a specific
flight, and thus avoid the high prices attached to confirmed seats
as opposed to Airhitching!