The Tux in the Backpack

Today 15th of October is Blog Action Day. Every year on Blog Action Day thousands of bloggers will write a post to raise awareness and try to help on a certain social topic. This year that topic is poverty.

All posts are in theme with the blog; quoting Blog Action Day guidelines: A Tech Blog might look at pro-poor technologies and projects like 1 Laptop Per Child, or A Personal Blog might document a personal activity of the blogger that is helping the disadvantaged.

I’d like to take this occasion to talk about a project that helps the people in Kampung Loco, a little village in the island of Lombok, Indonesia, just beside the famous and expensive Bali. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10% [?]

One of the things that strikes me most is that there are so many Flashpackers out there, but only few of them are aware of being one.

So often I meet travellers around the world and they tell me that yes, they do love travelling independently, and to travel for a long time they need to be on a budget, but still they don’t really want to sleep in a dorm with 20 other people.

They like to enjoy a good glass of wine, and try local delicacies. Having been on the road for a long time they met all kind of travellers, and now feel like running away when they see a big group from an organised tour, or when a cruise ship arrives on the island they’re staying.

And yes, they all have an mp3 player and a digital camera (but hey, who hasn’t nowadays?) and many do carry a laptop with them.

To me, they are Flashpackers. And when I mention the term to them they like it. They don’t feel they are Backpacking, but something close to it. They wouldn’t call themselves Backpackers but don’t have another term to describe the way they are travelling.

Let’s be clear here. We’re not trying to categorise or pigeon-hole travellers. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 15% [?]

Lately Flashpacking is associated more and more often with Fast Travel, on the run, hopping from one destination to another. This is due to a couple of misconceptions, that we’d like to clarify here before explaining why real Flashpacking is Slow Travel.

Misconception 1. Flashpackers tend to prefer a 2 hours flight to a 19 hours bus ride.
This makes them automatically fast travellers. They don’t want to spend time getting there and probably have somewhere else to go after this destination.

Misconception 2. Some Flashpackers have a job (or had a job).
As a consequence they have to see as much as possible in a month, or whatever long is their holiday from work.

These two misconceptions helped creating the idea of Flashpacking as Fast Travelling with a good amount of money and a load of tech gadgets. Fly in, stay in a nice hotel, take pictures, fly somewhere else tomorrow. All boxes ticked at the end of the trip.

Let’s clear the two misconceptions before moving to Flashpacking as Slow Travel.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 17% [?]

Is Flashpacking wrong?

To start with, the term itself has some kind of negative connotation: Flash, as in ostentation, or acting pretentiously.

Many sources in fact define Flashpacking as Backpacking on a bigger budget; the money being the one making the difference as it allows Flashpackers to afford traveling for a long time, but mainly to afford good quality (if not luxurious) accommodations.

Reading a comment on a Vagabondish article we discovered how some “unconscious” Flashpacker even felt bad in having more money than the average Backpacker and upgrading for a single room instead of a dorm: “My wife and I are flashpackers and we didn’t even know it. We felt a little guilty or even ostracized for having a bigger budget than backpackers, and it’s great to see that we have nothing to be ashamed about and we’re not alone.”

In the news you can find some bad stories of wealthy flashpackers bribing farmers in Australia in order to get holiday Visa extensions.

So is Flashpacking just a richer, sometime more incorrect, version of Backpacking?

Fair Flashpacking

You have both the cash and the ideas to actually help out a bit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14% [?]

When traveling around – especially if in a country where you don’t speak the language – it’s easy to end up chatting to people who speak your language. Quite often they are visitors like you (doesn’t matter if flashpackers, backpackers or honeymooners) or foreigners that live there, expats.

While visitors, especially tourists, are often over excited about the place and can’t wait to share their fantastic experiences with you (oh, you must absolutely do that!), expats are more relaxed and often not too bothered to talk to yet another visitor like you.

So keeping in mind that talking to the locals would be the ideal solution to get to know more of a culture, here are the 10 reasons why expats are a better chat than tourists while traveling:

1. Expats just know more about the place, in any aspect. Simple and straightforward: they’ve been there way longer than any temporary visitor.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 13% [?]