I think your somewhat prone to making glib generalizations and denigrating comments regarding stuff you don't appear to know much about--for example, who travels and who doesn't, how much money any of us have, used to have, or will have, what kinds of places are mere "unstable nightmares." And FWIW, there sure appear to be more people traveling long distances on motorbikes than ever before....despite your claim that we can't and won't. So what was your point again?

The price of gas? Here's the first Google result for the USA: InflationData: Gasoline Inflation . I'll leave it to you to show results for other places.

Long distance travelers? Well, there sure are a lot of books, websites, videos and (shudder) television shows these days. What do you make of that? Are they all pretenders?

But....When I first traveled in Africa for 7 months 20 years ago I saw not a single overland rider. I've now been going to West Africa for about ten years straight, and whereas I used to see one Western overlander per month I now see one per day in the same areas. When I first drove the pipeline Haul Road to Deadhorse I saw not a single rider in four days --and I didn't see any up towards Inuvik either. Now there's a constant stream of them through my hometown, coming and going, and the Alaskan roads are full of overlanders. Same with South and Central America, although I've got less basis for comparison: hundreds per year (as best I could figure) from North America to Ushuaia.

A lot of this is driven by the fact that the demographic--middle-aged and up--is relatively flush with cash and freedom, notwithstanding your statements to the contrary. Ted Simon, like me, may just be feeling a bit weary, having taken a lot of long trips. That's fine, but there are a hundred where there once was only Ted. That's not an indication that overland riders are staying home, clinging to their few remaining coins.

On the other hand, you know what they say about opinions....and that's at least doubly true with stuff, like this post, written late at night.

Mark