Long ago, I perfected the art of being a light traveler.

I hate checking and claiming bags — and risking one getting lost — so I got quite skilled at jamming everything I need into a carry-on.

After a bit of a break because of COVID-19, I’ve made a few trips recently … and I still got it. I have to carry a few extra items now — i.e. masks — but they don’t take up enough space to mess up my packing mastery.

I’ve even gotten used to wearing a mask for the duration of the flight. That includes a cross-country trip.

And you know what? A lot of other people have, too.

It’s a great sign for the economy, as well as an opportunity for smart investors …

If it weren’t for the masks on people’s faces, I’m not sure you would even know we’re in the middle of a pandemic looking at the number of people in the airports.

I flew through the Charlotte airport last week, and it was packed. I had to wait a lot longer than I wanted to get a cup of coffee because the line was so long!

It was much the same story on the planes themselves. Most of my flights were at least 75% full, and some even had every seat occupied.

The evidence is strong that people are ready to travel again, even with extra precautions. They’re eager for business meetings, family visits, and vacations to continue.

This gets us to what I call the “promixity trade.”

The proximity trade involves buying high-quality businesses whose stocks were hammered during the time of widespread social distancing but are now set to thrive again as restrictions have loosened.

Like restaurants, airlines, cruise lines, hotels, and casinos.

If you want a picture of what I’m talking about, the action in Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ:PENN) will blow your mind.

This company operates casinos and racetracks in the United States and Canada, and the stock got absolutely crushed in February and March. It dropped 90% from nearly $40 to under $4. Well, it just hit an new all-time high today … and is now up — are you ready? — more than 1,340% from its lows.

That’s in less than five months!

Penn’s trading is a bit unusual, and I might be cautious here after the big run. But if you believe that people will travel again in the next few years, the sectors I just mentioned are long-term bargains right now.

For example, the airline industry is more than 40% above its lows, but if you look at the US Global Jets ETF (NYSEARCA:JETS) you can see that it’s still about 85% from where it was in February and well below where it traded for much of the last three years.

Airlines are not the typical hypergrowth trend we talk about, but they are worth a look along with hotels and travel booking sites. There is plenty of room for upside as these stocks recover from the beatings they took. Based on what I’ve seen the last couple of weeks and the prospects for a post-COVID recovery, I’m more convinced than ever that people will continue to travel far into the future.

And that does get us to hypergrowth investing when we think about how much travel and transportation will change.

Throughout my recent travels, I’ve been very aware of how much has already changed … and how breakthrough innovations and are about to change even more.

Instead of a taxi, I took an Uber to the airport. In the future, I will hail an autonomous vehicle that will take me where I want to go. And after that, it may be a flying taxi.

Going through security at the airport, I thought about biometric scanning, RFID tracking, and other innovations that will make identification easier and luggage inspection safer.

My airplane was powered by jet fuel, but the day is coming when an airplane will be powered by next-generation breakthrough batteries. It may be hard to believe, but there are already several companies working on just that.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Transportation 2.0 will change our lives in the coming decade. Whatever we can envision right now is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s just like a decade ago when the first iPhone was released. Very few people imagined how that device would change our world.

The bigger the change, the bigger the gains. And that’s exactly what to look for as a long-term hypergrowth investor.

Matthew McCall left Wall Street to actually help investors — by getting them into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. The power of being “first” gave Matt’s readers the chance to bank +2,438% in Stamps.com (STMP), +1,523% in Ulta Beauty (ULTA) and +1,044% in Tesla (TSLA), just to name a few. Click here to see what Matt has up his sleeve now. Matt does not directly own the aforementioned securities.