The Tux in the Backpack

Yes, the global financial crisis is affecting us all in some way, and often is not good news. When it comes to travel, people tend to do it less. Holidays are shorter, or destinations are closer to where we normally live. Hotels have less bookings, airlines less flyers.

But there is some good news: as a consequence of all this prices are going down, and if you’re willing to travel now you can get some great deals that you wouldn’t have dreamed of even just one year ago.

Airline prices are into a “pleasant descent“. Low cost carriers meanwhile continue their rapid growth. According to KPMG “Traditional airlines are already moving closer to the low-cost model, but they will need to do so even more rapidly. In the long run the current downturn will squeeze the gap between low-cost carriers and traditional ones.” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 33% [?]

It was long due. The increasing number of visitors, the latest online reviews and buzz on Twitter deserved a better looking and easier to navigate blog.

Moreover Blogger, which is where I was previously hosting The Tux, doesn’t really offer half of the functionality you can have hosting your blog on Wordpress.

So here it is, the new, refreshed, self hosted Tux in Backpack.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 38% [?]

It was a year ago more or less. I had just arrived in New Zealand as part of my big trip around the world. I met some friends and ex-colleagues there. A few months before me they decided to leave the place where we were working in Dublin, Ireland, and go exploring the world. And here we meet again: an Italian (me), an Irish fellow, a Czech guy and a Finnish girl; in Auckland, on the other side of the world we were living.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 37% [?]

The distribution of information online is getting faster, shorter, more immediate. Introducing the Twitter and Tumblr counterparts of The Tux in the Backpack.

The Twitter phenomenon is getting extremely popular due to the immediateness of information shared…

Blog posts can take quite some time to be edited and refined; Twitter tweets are as simple and immediate as an sms message. Not familiar with Twitter? Check out how Twitter works in this video, Twitter in Plain English. Of course you can choose who you want to follow, meaning choosing who you’re going to receive tweets from. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 18% [?]

Living in a time of economical recession is not the best. People can lose savings, jobs, in worse case even homes. As a reaction people tend to save as much as possible, cut on spending, especially when it comes to luxury items. And as a consequence prices for many things that could be considered superfluous tend to go down. But hang on, isn’t travelling somehow considered a luxury or something to save on..? Could there be good news there for the a discerned traveller like a Flashpacker?

Ok, that’s probably too much luxury even for a Flashpacker, however…

While forecasts were pretty grim at the end of 2008, January brought a breeze of optimism, at least when it comes to travels. “Economic Downturn creates good deals” was shouting the Statesman at the very beginning of January, quoting how Genevieve Shaw Brown, senior editor of Travelocity, predicts that 2009 will be the year of travel deals.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 23% [?]