Hilarious video in which Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain talks about backpackers.

He’s notoriously a super-fast talker, and the Irish accent won’t be easy for everybody to understand, but surely the main idea will come out.

Maybe because he mentions that he’s getting too old and comfortable to backpack (”I had one of those moments when you go: I’m not doing that anymore”), or maybe because he prefers wheelie suitcases (”look, it’s on wheels, you feckin’ eijit”), but we like to think that Dara could easily be interested in travelling as a flashpacker.

Everybody is talking about Flashpacking, the new travel phenomenon. Many though define Flashpacking as backpacking with techno gadgets or on a bigger budget. Is a laptop, a digital camera and an I-pod all it takes to be a flashpacker? Those accessories are more and more common, and just because a Backpacker travels with them does it automatically make him/her a Flashpacker?

Some say the real Backpacking is dead anyway, as Backpackers want to see different realities and have a bit of culture-shock, but “they now expect the comforts of home, albeit with some exotic twists, but nothing that makes them too uncomfortable or homesick. They expect people to speak their language, buses to run on their schedule and locals to treat them with respect.”

Before being full of tech gadgets “backpacks used to contain the bare minimum, nothing more than a change of clothes, jacket and beach towel. Toss in a camera, sunscreen, hat, and mitts and you were ready to visit nearly any climate at all”.

So is Backpacking dead, and that’s why Flashpacking is becoming so popular? Is Flashpacking then an inevitable evolution of Backpacking? Check out this post, Backpackers are dying, and.. let us know what you think in the comments section.

UPDATE: That blog post doesn’t seem to exist anymore. But you can still let us know your thoughts..