A closer look
In a stunning victory for boring infrastructure, the hottest vacation of 1927 was sitting on a deck chair watching water slowly rise in a concrete ditch. When tourist cruises began transiting the Panama Canal, affluent travelers paid exorbitant fees to bake in the tropical sun and watch industrial lock gates open and close. There were no beaches, no cultural excursions—just the pure, unadulterated thrill of witnessing hydraulic displacement in action. It was the absolute peak of nerding out over civil engineering, disguised as high society leisure.
