People have been making predictions about travel for ages. Some have come true, or pretty close. Others, well not so much.
In the film Back to the Future Part 2, Marty McFly rode on a hoverboard. Then Lexus, the Japanese car manufacturer, unveiled a rideable prototype of a hoverboard, one of a few correct predictions. There were many more misses.
In 1899, Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists created a series of images titled En L´An 2000 (In the year 2000). Eighty-seven images were produced that depicted what the artists thought travel in the future would look like. They definitely had some interesting ideas.
The images depict everything from flying cars to flying firemen and post being delivered by flying postmen. They even imagined flying police to patrol the skies. The artists also imagined humpback whale buses. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like. Humpback whales carrying buses full of people.
The French were not the only ones who made interesting predictions about future travel. German postcards produced for the chocolatier Hildebrands are just as interesting.
These postcards imagined everything from walking on water with wooden shoes and balloons, to sea trains – a ship and train hybrid – and even blimp tours of the Arctic. Personal flying machines were also predicted.
Here is to all the imaginative predictions for travel! Maybe they will come true in some form or the other.
