With such varied samples, it’s hard to anticipate the most promising new spatio-temporal research areas. The researchers themselves were willing to share their opinions — heavily cited was the integration of sensor network data into a spatio-temporal framework. And, truth be told, one future direction we all had in mind was where in the world the Ninth International Symposium on Spatial and Temporal Databases will take place. If you like the idea of a beach resort 45 minutes south of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, then we’ll see you there in August 2005!