Mediating technologies on the move: tourists’ automobilities through the Limestone Coast, South Australia

ABSTRACT

The Limestone Coast is a popular tourist region located on South Australia’s south-eastern border with Victoria and home to several nature-based tourist attractions, including Naracoorte Caves National Park (NCNP). Through the acquisition of qualitative materials from 29 self-drive domestic tourists that visited NCNP, this study observed that many tourists’ automobilities were punctuated by periods of “connection” and “disconnection” with the technologies that permeated their motor vehicles. Mediating both statuses posed paradoxical dilemmas, as embracing connectivity could reduce the risks of disappointment or “missing out,” whilst rejecting connectivity stimulated feelings of adventure as their encounters of rural Australia remained relatively unpredictable.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism mobilities
• automobilities
• technologies
• domestic tourism
• Australia
• qualitative methods
• Asia pacific
• self-drive tourism
• freedom
• Limestone Coast

Acknowledgements

Claire Moore and Chantelle O’Brien are thanked for preparing the map of the study site and we also thank Rebecca Uphill for the partial collection of the research materials used in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.