2 WHAT,S YOUR KIND OF TOURISM?
Backpacker monthly review Backpacking … or flashpacking?or flashpacking?
Many students go backpacking in their gap year, that once-in-a- lifetime period between school and college, or college and work. Have you considered going to a foreign country thousands of miles away, all on your own? Could you cope without plane tickets, car-hire vouchers and booked accommodation?
Backpacking is a great way to travel, they say. As a backpacker, you’re free to do what you want, within your shoestring budget, of course. You only need clothes, a passport and an independent spirit. You have no itinerary, except for some vague plans to ‘do’ Asia or ‘go walking’ in the Rockies. There’s no tour operator to hold your hand. Backpackers are proud that they
‘rough it’. They are free and adventurous. But do they really have fun, hitching on dusty roads, sleeping in uncomfortable lodging houses, eating poor-quality food and wandering aimlessly through towns with no interest for the tourist? Perhaps they should wait until they can be a flashpacker. Flashpacking is the latest development in personal tourism. As a flashpacker, you get the best of both worlds: the joy of real travel, but also luxury accommodation and transport when you want it. Flashpackers are looking for adventure like backpackers, but there is one important difference. They have money. They are usually in their thirties and forties. They may be on extended holidays or career breaks. They probably went backpacking in their youth
Backpacker monthly review
and think they are doing it all over again. But unlike your average gap-year student, they will spend what it takes to get the experience they are after. That outback tour of Central
Australia costs £5000?
Where’s the 4WD? Start the engine! Travel companies are cashing in on this development. They are selling round-the-world tickets like hot cakes. Greg Halpin, a 39- year-old marketing director, is a typical example: ‘Flashpacking is a perfect word for what I’ve done. When I’ve changed jobs, I’ve used the break to go travelling. The last time, I went for six weeks, around Kenya and Tanzania. I put the trip together as I went along. I visited safari parks – some upmarket, some not. Then I went to Zanzibar, where I checked into a very flash hotel. It’s always interesting doing that when you’ve been on the road. You turn up a bit grubby, with a dusty old backpack, and they look rather alarmed. They’re very relieved an hour later, though, when you’ve cleaned up and walk back across the lobby looking decent. That’s one essential tip for travelling this way: always keep a set of smart clothes in a plastic bag inside your pack.’
There are three countries where flashpacking works particularly well. Each one can offer some of the most enjoyable aspects of budget travel – adventure, cultural insights, earthy simplicity – but with plenty of choice along the way.
First, there’s Australia. It’s no surprise that Oz is well set up for budget travel, with a good network of cheap accommodation, silver beaches and the outback. Every
Australian was a backpacker once. On the other hand, the Aussies have got a bit flash recently – cultural events, fancy cooking, etc. It adds up to perfect flashpacker territory. Thailand is very cheap, relatively speaking. The temptation is to be all flash and no pack. After all, when an upmarket Bangkok restaurant only charges £10 per head, why settle for anything less? But you should. If you use your money to spoil yourself all the time, you’ll never touch the real character and excitement of Thailand. So stay in that £4 beach hut, eat that 50p street snack and only buy yourself luxury when you really need it. Finally, Argentina is enjoying a boom from three types of traveller. Gap-year kids have added the Andes to their list; holiday travellers are arriving in well- organized groups to trek around the countryside and now flashpackers have discovered that the continent has exactly their mix of wild adventures and home comforts.
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