alt Hacker NewsThere are incredible people along the way, there are also incredible people watching and cheering on people who vlog. Communities can — and very much should — be much larger than just who you happen to have found yourself physically near.
And yes, I can assure you, you can absolutely have both while engaging in blogging, vlogging, serialized writing, or any other form of serialized expression.
Not all of vlogging has any relationship to your straw man.
I can only say that, in my own experience, you can't. Traveling pre- and post-smartphone are two completely different realities. The thing tethering you to a gigantic global faceless 'community' has the cost of weakening or blocking your engagement with real immediate physical people, and chance events and immediate experience. There is definitely a trade-off, no matter where your preferences lie. The last time I stayed in a hostel it was in Lima, Peru. It was mostly young people traveling. On every bunk in the room, a guest staring silently into their glowing palms. The joy of traveling used to be having very intense and focused encounters with completely new people who you would probably never speak to again...