A weekend in Scotland via London… stuck in an airport in a 4-hour layover was stranger than strange. As I walked out of the immigration checkpoint and into the “gates” area, I found myself surrounded not only by advertisements, I was bombarded by these massive airport retail stores. My first thought was, wow… who’s designing these and who’s making money? The second thought, after I took a minute to digest all this information—and it is the most important … How is this affecting our lives and the way we communicate with each other? Am I the only one noticing something wrong with this picture? Everyone was shopping without realizing that they had become numb to their surroundings. Most people were either shopping or looking down on to their phones. Never had I experienced such an unsual event. The beauty at airports for me was seeing people communicate with one another—either saying goodbye to someone with a long affectionate embrace, happy smiles because their on vacation or simply, a caring glance to the person sitting next to you. The luxury of traveling (at least for me) was to converse with others across the globe, meet new people and experience new places. I don’t recall traveling as a shopping experience. Have we lost the art of traveling or has it simply shifted as our needs have changed? Has our environment simply adjusted to the populations needs? Are consumers asking for this or are they being fed this? Has traveling simply shifted to shopping? How is this impacting the way we travel and live? Lots of questions … maybe, a topic for another discussion.