Thai tourism spans the spectrum from budget travel to luxury hotels and resorts. For a long time there have been scores of backpackers coming to Thailand during their gap year to take advantage of the value and culture in Thailand. Now that these backpackers are growing older there is a new type of tourist that combine the independence of the backpacking lifestyle with discerning taste and a desire for more comfort and ease.

These new tourists are being called ‘flashpackers’ and they are typically professionals in the 25-45 year old age bracket with large discretionary incomes. They may come alone or in groups, may be gay or hetero or may even be extending a business trip. The one thing they all have in common is that they soften the Lonely Planet type quest for authentic adventure with a preference for comfort, convenience and occasional indulgence.

The flashpacker is also often a veteran backpacker and very experience with independent travel. This experience combined with their increased spending power has created a market in Thailand for places with reasonable rates for a 5 star experience as well as a higher standard in the cheaper places such as Khao San Road and Thailand’s outstanding streetfood. One final requirement is that there is an emphasis on energy, style and cultural sensitivity.

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
This new segment dovetails with Thailand’s new emphasis on visitor quality over quantity in arrivals. As defined by Thailand’s Minister of Tourism and Sports, Dr Suvit Yodmani, quality tourists are environmentally aware, responsible individuals who take a keen interest in learning about the places and communities they visit. As a result, they tend to stay longer.

That reflects a mainstream adoption of values pioneered by backpackers, who sometimes get misread as being ‘low quality’ in a culture that judges dress as a social indicator. In fact, backpackers are generally well-raised, well-off graduates, who happen to relish dressing-down during their gap year travel or sabbatical from a smart-dressed job. By contrast, flashpackers typically pack both casual wear for active pursuits as well as fashion wear for high-living and nightlife.

Backpackers who feel well treated in places often go back there as professionals, with families, for business, or on further flashpacking escapades.

DESIGNED FOR SPEED
Backpackers spend a high budget gradually over a long period, treating intervening travel as key to the experience. Flashpackers, they say, have less time but more dime. So they skip to an increasing number of regional airports like Krabi, Trat, Samui and Hua Hin, via the burgeoning no-frills airlines — Nok Air, One-2-Go or Air Asia, or the boutique carrier Bangkok Airways. They may however splurge on premium jaunts like the Eastern & Oriental Express train, Oriental Balloon expeditions, or live-aboard diving yachts like Panunee.

Since flashpackers are wired and gadget-laden, even cheaper locations often provide wi-fi internet access or even iPod docks. Invariably their tightly scheduled trips were pre-assembled and booked online.

Trendy urbanite travelers also minimize commutes to sights. In Bangkok’s downtown that means access to mass transit from the posh hotels or boutique beds like Luxx, Rose or Siam at Siam. Staying in the Old Town once meant slumming in dowdy digs until Buddy Lodge started upgrading Khao San Road guesthouses. Now at Aurum, Arun Residence or Old Bangkok Inn, flashpackers sleep chicly amid the ancient communities they explore by day. And connoisseurs of Chinatown’s alleys can finally stay stylishly in situ, thanks to Shanghai Inn.

TREKS APPEAL
A similar surge in designer accommodation now enhances Chiang Mai’s second-city status. Hikers returning to the northern capital from treks among hill-tribe villages or white-water rafting previously put up with rather bland rooms. Now boutique hotels exemplify the neo-Lanna design wave.

Chiang Mai has evolved a restaurant scene to match. Foodies may lunch the local way at ‘khao soi’ noodle stalls then dine with panache at The House, Baan Suan or Le Grand Lanna. Wised-up trekkers head further north to Chiang Dao, where hill tribe and elephant experiences contrast with the surprisingly refined cuisine at Chiang Dao Nest guesthouse. Hundreds of bends to the northwest, mountain-ringed Pai provides more flashpacker fusion. Joining its renowned quirky hostelries and galleries, swish new resorts will soon to be served by an airstrip.

REFINED RUSTIC
Trekking itself has become more accessible to those with less time but an undiluted thirst for the real thing. Jungle Rafts, floating on a Kanchanaburi river in the West, pioneered the concept of comfy yet conscientious accommodation in remote forests, as did Treetops with treehouses in the Khao Sok National Park to the south, and the northern tribal village residences of Lisu Lodge and Khum Lanna. And in Bangkok’s fringes, the Thai House not only teaches Siamese cooking, but offers a chance to sample canal life in a teak stilt home.

COASTAL CONTRASTS
The ultimate backpacker grail was the ‘undiscovered’ island idyll, as immortalized in the book and film The Beach. An exclusive beach now tends to mean a gated jet-set resort. Many bamboo bungalow operations remain, though no longer on Phuket or increasingly Samui and Krabi. Islands where these extremes co-exist include Lanta and Phi-Phi in the south, Chang and Samet in the east. Flashpackers relish the contrast, chilling with beach dudes at Crusoe-esque huts before treating themselves to a private pool villa.

PARTY PRIORITY
Koh Pha-ngan not only serves both markets, but adds a factor crucial to lifestyle-oriented tourists: nightlife. The island’s celebrated Full Moon Parties virtually invented the idea of people traveling specifically to party. Nightlife tourism’s gone beyond hippies spaced-out on the beach. Globalized young professionals often select cities by the quality of their bars and clubs. Despite a social order crackdown, Bangkok retained its after-dark frisson. Venues like Bed Supperclub, Q Bar and Club Culture program globally famous DJs as well as homespun talent. Where ramshackle bar beers once set the tone, now hip bars with mixologist waiters feature in backpacker handbooks like the Rough Guide.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Another inheritance from the backpacker ethos is a sense of responsibility, especially ‘fair trade’. Flashpackers tend to favor community operators and independent hotels over corporate chains. That spurs an incentive for diversity rather than generic brands. Jungle Rafts supports a marginalized Mon settlement. Phra Nakorn Norn Len interprets the shop house lifestyle and encourages guests to buy rather than bypass neighborhood services like meals and laundry. The individually-created interiors at Reflections’ Rooms provide international exposure for emerging Thai artists. Increasingly, affluent young tourists devote part of their up market holiday to labor on voluntourism projects. Today’s packers might be flash, but they are still fair.

LIFESTYLE IN YOUR LUGGAGE
To recover from an arduous trek, dive or shopping marathon, these active explorers may reward themselves at a sumptuous hotel spa. Alternatively, those splashing out on an opulent hotel room can stretch their baht with a cheaper treatment at one of the independent spas thronging every tourist locale. That’s the beauty of flashpacking — choosing to skimp or splurge according to taste. It is tailoring Thailand to your lifestyle.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did, it gave me some great ideas for my next trip to Thailand. I definitely want to check out Phra Nakorn Norn Len and will also be making an effort to have dinner at La Grande Lanna in Chiang Mai. Jungle Rafts also looks mad cool and if I can convince Golf to go I think we’ll be making our way there as well. And finally I will be picking up a copy of The Beach to help me through the cold winter here in the States.

Does all of this make me a Flashpacker? Probably, I do fit the demographic and much of what I read here and in the accompanying links resonated with me. What about you? Are you a flashpacker? Do you think this kind of tourism is good for Thailand and the rest of the world? Let’s hear your thoughts about flashpacking.

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