[Mediterraneo10]

> These days people might probably just use Google navigation, and don't even use their head anymore, sadly.

I have done some very long journeys through South America. It used to be the case that anyone spending a whole year or more in South America backpacking or cycling would learn Spanish. Why not, if Spanish is considered easy to learn and you have all that free immersion in the language?

But on my last long trip, I was amazed to find that most other shoestring travelers I met were simply using Google Translate on their phones to communicate with the people they met: whether waiters in restaurants, their drivers if they were hitchhiking, local people they struck up a conversation with, etc.

When I said, “Why not learn Spanish if you are here for a whole year?”, the response was basically them rolling their eyes and saying “Whatever, grandpa.”