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Ervolino: Your iPhone is a curse and blessing when traveling

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Ervolino: Your iPhone is a curse and blessing when traveling

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International air travel, which once involved reams of paperwork — tickets, boarding passes, reservation confirmations, itineraries, maps and sheets and sheets of printed directions — is now a churning, soul-numbing whirlpool of apps, emails and text messages.

Steve Jobs is long gone, but feel free to blame him for all this.

Jobs, the founder of Apple and father of the iPhone, died in 2011, seven years after I traveled to Italy in 2004. That was my last European trip before I left, two weeks ago, for a return visit to see friends in the Netherlands.

I didn’t have a smartphone in 2004 — the iPhone was still being developed — and I didn’t need one. Everything I needed to get from Jersey to Italy and back again was on the 47 pounds of paperwork in my carry-on bag.

When a traveling companion asked, “What time do we check into our hotel in Rome?” I replied, “Hold on, I have all of that information, right here on page 405 of my notes.”

As you may or may not know, things have changed since then. A lot. But, I didn’t notice because I had taken a break from flying.

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I’ve spent the last few years traveling around the U.S. by car, a time-consuming but otherwise uncomplicated mode of transportation.

Two years ago, when someone asked, “What time are you leaving for Maine?” I replied, “Around 10 a.m. on Tuesday.”

But, last month, when someone asked, “What time are you leaving for the Netherlands?” I had to check the airline app on my iPhone.

“I’m leaving for the airport at 3 p.m. on Thursday,” I said. “My flight is scheduled to leave at 5.”

My dog sitter was privy to that information. So was the car service taking me to Newark Liberty Airport. And the car service picking me up at Schiphol Airport in northern Holland. And the desk at my hotel in Amsterdam. And the good friend who lives about two hours south of Schiphol, in the southern city of Geleen, and was driving up to Amsterdam to greet us.

That friend, Rolf, had offered to pick up me and my friend Tom at the airport and drive us to our hotel.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “We’re arriving at 6 a.m. and you live more than two hours away.”

Tom, the friend I was traveling with, had left all the planning of this trip to me, which meant that all of the “paperwork” was in my phone. All of the updates, too.

Like the one the airline sent on departure day to tell me that my 6 p.m. flight wouldn’t be leaving until 8.

The car service that was taking us to the airport from my house in Wood-Ridge had all my flight info, but I called them, anyway.

“You probably know this already,” I said, “but my flight has been delayed two hours.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” he said.

Terrific.

“So,” I continued, “instead of picking us up at 3 p.m. could you pick us up at 4:30?”

“No problem,” he replied.

Then, just to be on the safe side, I contacted the hotel, the Dutch car service and Rolf, to start spreadin’ the news: “Our flight has been delayed two hours.”

Three hours later, our flight was delayed another hour. Then, another hour. Then, a few moments after we left the gate, shortly after 10 p.m., the pilot said we had to go back to the gate because of a computer issue.

By the time we finally took off, five hours later than scheduled, I had texted everyone four times on my phone — the same phone which had served as my boarding pass. (Paper? What’s that?)

The phone was also how we ordered dinner — and paid for it — at the airport. The tables at the airport restaurant had QR codes printed on them. You held your phone over the code to read the menu, order your food and pay for it.

“Do any humans work here?” Tom asked. “How do we get our food?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe we have to pull it out of our phones.”

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I was a bit bothered by all of this until the car service dropped us off at our hotel and then drove off, with my small “crossbody” bag still in the back seat. This was the little black bag that contained my wallet, cash and passport.

I tried to remain calm at the desk, but wound up screaming and running around the lobby like a 6-year-old girl with her bloomers on fire.

Then, I remembered: The driver had texted me at the airport. So, I texted him back.

He returned to the hotel in about 12 minutes, with the bag intact.

Can you imagine if this had happened 40 years ago?

I thanked my driver profusely.

I thanked Steve Jobs, too.

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