Trends are hard to identify in any walk of life, and when you consider travel in the 21st century, things don't get any easier.

Curiosity contributor Bambi Turner went in search of coming trends in travel and found technology ready to take us places heretofore only dreamed about.

One thing that seems almost certain, according to a new study by the Amadeus IT Group, is that the future of travel will be a lot more dependent on technology, which will make travel easier and more interesting and more time efficient. Some innovations are already being tested. For example, two German developers have created an “augmented reality” app for the iPhone. When you’re in Berlin, you can now point your phone’s camera toward famous landmarks, such as the Brandenburg Gate, and the app will “build” the Berlin wall in front of it, just as it stood before 1989 [source: Layar].

Some experts think many popular destinations will stop allowing visitors, either because of climate changes or because the large number of visitors is affecting the structural safety of the destination (as in the case of ruins and historic locations). So an online virtual tour might be the new way to see those sights. And with this eye toward preservation and a continued interest in green travel, more and more people will likely travel to places closer to home, favoring trains and cars over flying [source: Amadeus IT Group].

Not everyone will be giving up on flight. Rather than, say, a flight to Paris, they'll seek a shimmering experience a little farther from their home -- well, their home planet that is. Space tourism is gaining ground and might become even more accessible in the future. Spacecraft airports -- "spaceports" -- might sound like science fiction, but they're real. You can find one near Truth or Consequences, N.M., where several hundred people in 2012 booked a $200,000 ticket for a suborbital flight lasting about three hours [source: Hudson]. Several states around the U.S. are hoping to join New Mexico in having a spaceport -- currently, Alaska, California, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Virginia are designated spaceport states.

The future of travel promises plenty of new and exciting developments, whether you want to start your trip online or hope to reach into space.