We love a gimmick here at dealchecker, and obviously we love travel (I know, would you believe it!) – so we were fascinated to read about some unique new travel concepts that a few clever science-y sorts are cooking up. Futuristic travel is no longer a vague, Michael J. Fox tinged illusion; in reality, amazing developments are happening as we speak and if the following is anything to go by, it won’t be long until we’re booking our flights to our new favourite floating city.
Airship cruises
We’re all about the cruises at dealchecker, but usually we expect them to be on some kind of huge blue expanse of watery stuff. The ‘Manned Cloud’ is an air cruise – yes, it looks like a giant floating albino whale but apparently it’s going to be quite the luxury experience. The Manned Cloud is intended to accommodate forty passengers, with an onboard restaurant, library, fitness suite, spa and sundeck. With a cruising speed of 80mph, the cruise is literally a floating pod.
Robot hotel staff
R2-D2 eat your heart out! Military deliverbots, which are being developed for military use, apparently are being considered for use in the hospitality industry, specifically for room service. The robots will check you in, clean and act as personal valets. The ‘Da Vinci’ Robot is being developed for this purpose. In the future it looks like it’s going to be less a case of asking Jeeves, and more instructing Tron.
Floating Cities
Like Ron Seal before it, this does exactly what it says on the tin. The floating city would perpetually circumnavigate the globe, with each ‘district’ of the city having a different architectural concept based on an already existing city. Norman Nixon, the chief executive of Freedom Ship Inc, who are responsible for the idea, described the floating city as a “new lifestyle where residents and business owners are only minutes away from a constantly changing environment and have the ability to see the beauty of the world”. It will be a mile-long, energy self-sufficient with absolutely everything included from parks and playgrounds to apartments, businesses, schools, casinos and shopping malls.
Space hotels
There’s been quite a bit of press attention about billionaires paying through the nose to go and stay in ‘space hotels.’ Developers are however cottoning onto the notion that there is a gap in the market for space travel – for the filthy rich, that is. If it comes to pass, the first space hotel will in all likelihood will be a combination of research and the commercial. Apparently there would be a degree of luxury attempted, although the cost would certainly be more for the privilege of going where previously only astronauts could – and not for a heart shaped 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton bed and personal team of Geisha masseuses. Damn.
Hotel Pods
Hotel Pods are essentially accommodation raised on stilts that can be folded away and transported from place to place. Supposedly eco-friendly, they could stay in one place for twenty years or for a mere couple of weeks, for example, for a festival. With their stilts that make only a small mark on the ground and pholtovoltaic cells, they are supposed to inflict minimum damage on the environment. We can’t seem to find much information on their inside ameneties, so i suppose we’ll just to wait and see!
Header image source: msnbcmedia
