Packing your clothes in your backpack may not sound like the most challenging thing in the world to do, but ask anyone who’s done it and undoubtedly they’ll admit it’s one of those things that’s harder than you would think.

For the last couple of years I followed the methods on the OneBag site which worked OK, but not perfectly. The bundle method promoted over there is certainly effective, but I found that in a backpack, your bundle of clothes shifted around and made a mess of things.

I’m getting ready for another trip to Morocco and during a trip to my local REI I came across the Eagle Creek Pack-It Folder.  I had walked by them before and passed them as nothing more than a gimmick, but after one too many trips with my clothes stretching out because I packed them too tight, I decided to give it a shot.  It had great reviews online and was on sale for about $20.

I’m hooked.

The concept is simple.  Pack your clothes neatly inside the folder and fasten the sided down to smash everything together tightly.  The key, of course, is to fold and pack your close neatly which everybody knows is no easy feat.  The Pack-It folder makes it pretty fool proof though.

Fold your pants in half on and lay them on the bottom of the folder.

Use the included folding sheet to fold any shirts or tops you have neatly.  It’s just like the stores do it.  Lay the thin plastic card on the back of your shirt and fold the sleeves over the sides.  Flip up the bottom of the shirt and remove the card.  Lay the shirt on the top of your folder and repeat until you’re done with all of your clothes.  The card even has directions on it in case you can’t figure it out.

Finally, lay the card on the top of your pile and fold the sides of the folder over.  You can cinch them down and fasten the velcro to keep it all tight.  There’s even a handle to carry it easily if it’s not going inside a backpack or luggage.

The benefits

If you’re familiar with the bundle wrapping technique, you’ll notice this isn’t too far off. The main difference is that the folder keeps the clothes together rather than wrapping them around each other.

Your clothes will be neatly packed in a considerably smaller space than you are used to.  The folder isn’t much larger than a laptop (depending on what size you purchase) so you’ll be saving a lot of room in your backpack.

The drawbacks

As with anything that helps you fit more things into smaller spaces, you’ll be tempted to pack more than you need.  Fight the urge and take only what you need.  You’ll have extra room in your backpack if you need it for other things while traveling and you’ll save some strain on your back.

The other minor (and I mean very minor, to me at least) drawback is that your clothes will not stay wrinkle free.  Wrinkles will be minimized but they will get minor creases from the folding but to me that is not a big deal.  They’re much more wrinkle-free than if I were to fold and pack them myself.  So far this doesn’t bother me at all.

Some people may complain about paying for another piece of gear, but at around $25, I think this is well worth it.  I can enough to last me for two weeks in less than 5 minutes and into a convenient size that’s not much larger than a laptop computer.

The Eagle Creek Pack-It Folder comes in three sizes: 15, 18, and 20.  After trying all three, I found the 20 too large and the 15 too small and the 18 just right.  I packed one pair of pants, two pairs of shorts, 2 dress shirts, and 5 t-shirts in the 18 with room to spare.

Where to purchase

You can probably find an Eagle Creek Pack-It Folder at your local outdoor retailer, but you can also order them on Amazon for around $25 depending on the size.

“You’ll get robbed” they said.
“Quito is a hell hole full of mugs, low life’s and degenerates.”
“You’ll be lucky to leave with both kidneys intact, let alone your laptop.”

Everyone seems to have an opinion about Quito, and it’s generally not pleasant. ‘The most dangerous place in South America’ had been bandied about while I was in Ecuador, and based on what I had heard, I was pleasantly surprised to get out alive.

I was working at a hostel in Quito last year, and it seemed that every second day a backpacker would return distressed after being mugged while sightseeing. Laptops, iPhones and Cameras were the most thieved items, but it wasn’t unheard of for someone to be held up for their money or passport.

What did most of those victims have in common? They flouted their (comparative) wealth; Camera’s dangling around their necks; they wore expensive jewellery and designer clothes; they explored unsafe areas by themselves (despite being warned not to). They didn’t use common sense.

There’s a fair chance we’ll all run into a bit of strife on the road. You can be the most cautious traveller, but if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, or just dead out of luck, even the most fastidious of us can get caught out. But it was astounding the amount of backpackers that were bewildered about their mugging after so blatantly advertising their wealth.

Let’s face it – quite a few Ecuadorian’s are considered ‘poor’ by western standards. In fact 35% of the 14,791,000 people in Ecuador live below the poverty line. That’s over 5 million people. So yeah, sometimes people will try to mug you, but that’s going to happen in many developing countries.

It’s frustrating when a country is written off because of someone’s bad experience being on the ugly side of a mugging. Bad news travels a lot faster than good news, and while you would hope people take many factors into consideration when deciding where to visit, word of mouth can be a massive persuasion. It would be a shame for travellers to miss out Quito due to the bad experiences of others.

I found Ecuador to be once of the most fascinating countries I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. The locals I met where so welcoming and engaging, and it does seem a little bit forgotten when it comes to South America; Peru has Machu Picchu, Bolivia the Salar de Uyuni and death road, Columbia is the new ‘must visit’ destination and I don’t need to go into Brazils draw cards. But Ecuador has the goods; The Andean highlands and the Cotopaxi volcano; the beautiful spa’s of Baños, the vibrant university town of Cuenca and the chilled out Pacific coast beach towns like Montañita are all worthy of a spot on any itinerary, not to mention the Galapagos Islands. Also, don’t forget that you can stand right on the Mitad del Mundo (that’s the middle of the world… also known as the equator) -not an hours drive out of Quito (which itself is a vibrant bustling city full of history and culture). There’s so much going for Ecuador, it would be a shame to miss out, which is why I’ve put together the following tips for a visit to the capital of this underestimated country.

The standard traveller musts apply, but are worth mentioning again;

• Leave the valuables and money you don’t need at your hostel. There’s probably a safe you can use, at the very least padlock your locker.

• Know and avoid the most dangerous areas (In Quito these are; El Panecillo, and for that matter anywhere in the old town after dark, especially near the market).

• Be alert, especially in crowded spaces or when people invade your personal space.

• Dress inconspicuously so as not draw attention to yourself as a ‘gringo con dinero’. Leave the Ed Hardy shirts at home (if only to keep the respect of your fellow travellers).

• Leave whatever money you don’t need back at the hostel, and split up into different pockets whatever you have on you.

What to do if you’ve been robbed in Quito

• Head straight to for the estación de la policía . Explain to someone what happened and they’ll more than likely take you right to the station. You might be hard pressed getting the police to fill out a report but persevere, you’ll need it for your insurance.

• I needn’t go into the necessity of having travel insurance. So assuming you already would have taken this out (which of course you would have) give them a call as soon as possible and let them know what’s happened. World Nomads has an online claim system, which means you don’t have to spend half an hour on Skype trying to get through to someone only to have the call drop out halfway through.

• If you stay at a well-known and recommended hostel, like The Secret Garden in Quito, speak to one of the many Ecuadorian staff and they’ll be more than happy to help you out with getting in touch with your embassy or insurance. Tell you’re sob story to one of the foreign gringo volunteers and they might even poor you a cerveza gratis so you can down your sorrows.

• Once you’ve reporting your loss to the police and contacted your insurance head for the black market (mercado negro) and see if you can spot your stolen goods. A guy from my hostel found his camera there, the thief forgot to take out the memory card so all his photos we’re still in the camera. He just showed the photos to the nearby Police officer, who allowed him to take the camera back and be on his merry way.

Above all, don’t freak out about a trip to Quito. It’s an amazing city full of history, lots to see and do, plenty to great clubs and bars, and full of friendly people. Just take care when out and about, don’t flash your iPhone about, and enjoy what this amazing city has to offer.

Follow Shane on Twitter or read more on his travels at sanchezjalapeno.com

It’s 7:30am and the town of Boquete, Panama is just starting to wake up. But there I am, first up in the hostel, sitting with my MacBook Pro on my lap in the open-air dining area. I’m enjoying the refreshing breeze coming through the walkway, but more importantly I’m writing a client back in the states who has no idea I’m in Central America on a what I call a semi-holiday.

I had been wanting to visit Panama for a while but this trip was designed to be equal parts enjoyment and work. A test, of sorts.

My freelance business is doing very well. Good enough to live off of, but I’m still working for a small company in California. I’ve been blessed to have a great job with some decent travel benefits for the better part of a decade, but I’m trying be proactive.

We are in a recession that isn’t just changing the way people live, it’s changing the way businesses operate. There are cutbacks everywhere and small businesses are realizing they can still manage to operate with fewer employees. Give more work to who is leftover after a round of layoffs and it will certainly get done.

This isn’t just a trend. It’s the new way to do business. Frugal and efficient.

That doesn’t mean I’m worried about being unemployed any time soon, but the writing is on the wall. I’ll be safe for a while, but I don’t have high hopes for my job to take me all the way to retirement.  Not to sound like a pessimist, but this probably holds true for most people.

And let’s admit it: who wants to wait until 65 to retire? I’d rather travel now.

Testing the waters

I had a plan for a while about the type of life I wanted to lead in the near future, but was it realistic?  Could I continue to work while traveling the world for months on end? Was I really cut out to be a digital nomad?

As I mentioned, this trip to Panama was a test.  I wanted to see if I could enjoy traveling while continuing to focus on my work.  With about two days notice I booked a rewards ticket to Panama City without a plan.  Upon arrival I hired a rental car and drove up the Pan American Highway towards Boquete.  A small town known for its coffee in the northern highlands near the Costa Rican border.

Each morning I hopped on the computer for an hour or two and took care of all immediate business requiring my attention.  After the important tasks were taken care of I made a to-do list for the evening and then headed out to enjoy my day.

Can you really find the time?

I found it easy to find the time to continue working while traveling.  While I sure didn’t want to spend the entire day indoors working, there was usually plenty of time to relax on the computer and get some work done.

For instance, one day after I took care of my morning tasks I went white-water rafting.  It was an exciting and tiring day so when I was done and returned to Boquete, I welcomed a comfy hammock and my laptop and had a few hours before dinner to get things done.

Will you have the discipline?

Assuming you have accommodations that offer internet service there is plenty of time available to focus on work.  That said, you will still have make the time.  That means partying all night and sleeping in is probably out of the cards unless you want to neglect your business.

In my case, I’ve found I can get more work done this way as I am forced to focus on the task at hand.  Also, while there are plenty of things you’ll want to get out and do, when you’re indoors and working there will likely be considerably less distractions than at home.  No TV, no DVDs, no video games, etc.

I’m also amazed at how much writing I can do while on an airplane and cut off from the internet.  It’s a blessing in disguise.

Discipline is definitely the most important factor for success as a digital nomad.

Headline photo courtesy of Rita Willaert

Something I avoided for far too long was purchasing any clothing marketed for “travel.” I found it quite silly that a shirt or pair of pants could benefit my comfort while traveling and laughed when I looked at the prices of most of them at the local outdoors store.

With every trip I started to realize how uncomfortable I was though, whether it was sitting on a plane for several hours in jeans or stretching out a cotton t-shirt while wearing my backpack.

Not to mention how bad my typical t-shirts started to look and smell after a couple of days of use (and rinsing in the hostel shower).

My jeans were the first pair of clothes to get nixed for travel.  I love wearing jeans day in and day out, but let’s face it, they’re not the most forgiving pair of clothing while sitting in a airplane seat for hours on end.  They’re also quite heavy in your backpack.

Before my trip to Argentina I purchased a pair of REI Adventure pants for $50.  It was definitely more than I typically spend on a pair of pants but their versatility sold me.  They’re light and comfortable, breathe well, have concealed zipper pockets for your wallet and passport and most importantly, look good.  They’re nice enough to wear with to work with a nice shirt, but casual enough to wear with a t-shirt and pair of sneakers.

Finally I bit the bullet and purchased a couple of pairs of shirts made for travel and adventure.  One by REI and two by The North Face.  I’m not here to review the specific products though, so let’s look at the big picture.

Benefits

Most travel clothing is made from nylon or polyester.  These materials are generally lighter than cotton and do a better job at moisture-wicking.  They also dry very fast so you can wash them in a sink or shower and hang them to dry overnight.  That means you can pack much less than you normally would.

Many are treated to be water resistant, block the sun’s evil SPF rays, and some repel insects as well.  I’m clumsy, pale, and mosquitoes love to suckle my blood so I’ll take them all – thanks!

Most travel and adventure clothing are made to be more durable than your average article of clothing.  Many of the brands that specialize in this type of gear even offer lifetime warranties.

Cons

The biggest negative to dedicated travel clothing  is the price.  There’s a premium placed on most travel clothing but be sure to check out when things go on sale for the best deals.

One way to offset the cost is to find things you can wear for other uses than just traveling.  Everything I’ve purchased so far can also be worn to work back home so I can get more use out of it.  That being said, some much of the stuff you’ll find at your local outdoor retailer just looks silly.  I don’t like to walk around looking like Paul Bunyan.

Hopefully you’re familiar with super-traveler & blogger extraordinaire Chris Guillebeau but if not, now’s the time to start.

But this post isn’t just to kiss his butt, it’s to share his great eBook titled Frequent Flyer Master.

I don’t buy many eBooks because I’m one of those stubborn fools who would rather spend 30 hours researching things myself than pay somebody $5 to teach me them in one hour.  Silly, I know but I’m starting to open up to the idea and have purchased a few products like this over the past few months.

Despite thinking I knew all there was to know about mileage programs and reward travel I went ahead and ordered Frequent Flyer Master after reading Chris’ 25,000 mile (one domestic round-trip airline ticket) guarantee.  Earn an extra 25,000 miles after reading it or he’ll gladly refund your money.  That’s a good enough guarantee to me and 25,000 miles is well worth the cost of the program.

Within two months of purchasing it I’m due to receive about 90,000 frequent miles and have only taken one flight (which I ironically didn’t earn any miles on due to my poor attention to booking details).

What can 90,000 frequent flyer miles get you?

• How about more than three round-trip domestic tickets in the USA?
• Or almost two round-trips to Europe.
• And my personal favorite, two round-trips to Central America with enough left over for a domestic trip.

What did three years of constant business-travel get me?

• Around 20,000 miles on Delta
• Around 13,000 miles on American Airlines
• Around 4,000 miles on United
• Around 2,000 miles on US Air
• A sore back

I’ll take the 90,000 frequent flyer miles for almost zero work!

Even a stubborn guy like me still has a lot to learn and Chris is the MAN for teaching me that.

One of the bonuses that isn’t exactly advertised is the Frequent Flyer Master email list.  If you’re on any of Chris’ other email lists you’ll know he loves to send great info out to his readers (he’s about the only one who doesn’t drive me crazy with spam – every email is worth reading).  Well if you purchase, you’ll get an early, or sometimes exclusive, heads up on promotions and info regarding adding up even more miles.

Of course your mileage may vary (no pun intended) but for me, it has already paid for itself tenfold.

How much does it cost?

I guess it’s time to talk dollars and cents (or sense, if you have any).

The Frequent Flyer Master eBook / program costs just $49.  If you read it and earn a quick 25,000 miles, it’ll be the cheapest airline ticket of your life!

You might also consider bundling the Becoming a Travel Ninja guide for a total of $79 which I also found extremely useful.  Some of the knowledge on Round-The-World (RTW) airfare in that guide alone is worth its weight in gold.

Full Disclosure

The links on this page are affiliate links. I’ll earn a few bucks if you decide to purchase any of the Unconventional Guides through my links.  I joined with Chris to promote this after I bought and read both guides on my own dime, without any plans to sell them to anybody.  After spending the time to read them though and earning some serious frequent flyer miles very quickly, I realized this stuff has to be shared!

If you end up purchasing them through this page, please leave a comment below.  I’d like to send you a special thank you in the near future.

10) Banff

9) Yosemite

8) Niagara Falls

7) New York Skyline

6) Yellowstone

5) Metropolitan Museum

4) Carlsbad Caverns

3) Chichen Itza

2) Teotihuacan

1) Grand Canyon

Thanks to Howard Hillman for the Top 10 list and the wonderful photographs who have utilized the Creative Commons license on these beautiful photos.  Click the appropriate photo for more from each photographer.

It’s rare that I meet somebody who doesn’t love to travel, or at least has a burning desire to do so. Occasionally though, people will find themselves with a lack of motivation to travel or maybe even feeling a bit burnt out.

As somebody who used to travel frequently for business, I’ve been there. In fact, when my work became steady and I stopped traveling for business, I didn’t go anywhere for three years. I didn’t even use my vacation time from work. Talk about a waste.

Here’s a few ways you can get back into the travel mood and catch the burning desire to venture out into the world:

Watch a good movie

Spend the night in and rent a good foreign film that will make you yearn to learn a language and experience life in another place.

Sidenote: I’ve watched Amelie about 50 times in order to practice my French.

Suggestions:

• Amelie
• Casablanca
• Art of Travel
• The Motorcycle Diaries
• Lost in Translation
• Easy Rider

Read a book

Much like a good film, a great book can transplant you to another place and immerse you in a culture you might otherwise have no familiarity with.  Most people can’t get through a book in an evening, but spending a few days or weeks (months in my case) is a great way to encourage you seek fun or adventure elsewhere in the world.

Suggestions:

• The Beach
• Into the Wild
• Anything by Paul Theroux

Eat at a foreign restaurant

Bonus points if you’ve never tried that type of food before.

And guess what: chances are the food where you are going is probably considerably better than the local restaurant, regardless of it’s authenticity.  For example, there is a great Moroccan restaurant in town but their best meal doesn’t compare to the worst meal I had in Morocco.

Break up with your significant other

OK, I’d never encourage anybody to DO this so you can go travel, but if this unfortunate event occurs, why not get over someone by taking an impromptu trip to Europe or somewhere where you can get your mind off of that heartbreak (or in some cases, relief)?

It’s surprising how many people I’ve talked to who’s travel bug caught them after they ran off for a month following a breakup.  Seems about as good of an excuse as any to me!

Work too much overtime

Here’s an easy one.  Work too much and I can almost guarantee you’ll quickly have a dying urge to hop aboard a plane and run away for a few weeks.

I’m going on 45-straight days of work (the joys of having a day-job AND running your own business) so you can bet I’m ready for my next trip.  July can’t come fast enough!

How do you get motivated to travel?  Does it come naturally or do you need some outside encouragement?

Headline image courtesy of freefotouk

This post is supposed to be about doing Melbourne, Australia (my home town) as a backpacker. I wanted to write something on how those of us with itchy feet who want to be travelling but can’t (work commitments, saving money etc) can still do the little things to get that ‘on the road’ feeling back, by seeing our cities through new eyes. I wanted to do all the things I would do as a backpacker, but never do as a resident. So I did the research, got the maps, charged the camera and was ready to hit the town when I realised that Melbourne, while a spectacular city to live in, just isn’t that great as a backpacker.

Melbourne has really funky bars, good museums and due to our large multicultural population there is a diverse rang of authentic cheap eats, everything from Ethiopian to Nepalese. Melbourne also has the highest amount of Italian’s per capita living outside of Italy, so you’d be hard pressed to walk  2 blocks without finding a good Italian place.  All great things to do when living here (and having a disposable income to spend on booze and food), but finding stuff to do as a backpacker was proving difficult. Still, I thought I’d give it a go.

The first thing to do was find a place to stay. The cheapest dorm bed I could find last minute was 35 dollars. I had the intention of doing the entire weekend as a backpacker – bed bugs and all – but when I was quoted this price at check in , I quickly changed my mind. For a grand total of 0 dollars I could sleep in my own apartment in the city. Sans bed bugs and dubious looking stains on the sheets. So that idea was scratched.

I realised though that if I were to do any of this properly, I’d need to hang out with other backpackers that were in town. So I hit the bars and common areas of a few hostels to get an idea on what there was to do in Melbourne.

First thing on the agenda for most British Backpackers was to pick up. The second thing was a trip to the Neighbours TV Set. (American readers probably don’t know what I’m on about, so in brief – Neighbours is an Australian Teen soapie that is arguably much bigger in the UK than Australia and unarguably makes for very awful TV). After that the next most common thing to do was head to St Kilda. Now that’s something I could do.

St Kilda is only 7 kilometres from the city but it’s world apart. Palm trees line the esplanade, beautiful people swim at the beach, and there are plenty of cafes to sit at and read the paper. So I hopped on the 96 tram and headed down there.  Thing is St Kilda is a great place to live, and a great place to be on holiday if you’re from out of town, but as a backpacker it gets a bit boring once you’ve done the beach thing.

Melbournians, like many backpackers, are sports-mad. You can’t walk down the street on the weekend without having to push and shove your way through oncoming masses en route to an AFL (Australian Football League) game or the tennis. Problem is, for me the only thing worse than watching sports is having to participate in sports (I still have nightmares of the mandatory yearly athletics carnival at school) so when I’m travelling I tend to bypass all the sporting events (except Lucha Libre… we all have our vices)

I decided to take a somewhat more cultured approach to my weekend as a backpacker. I headed to the National Gallery of Victoria to see an exhibition of the work of an Australian who lived in Paris at the turn of the 20^th century, as well as another exhibition called ‘Love, Loss and Intimacy’ which was good too. Both were free which is exactly the sort of exhibitions I’d be looking for as a backpacker. I congratulated myself on a job well done by heading into the labyrinth that is Melbourne City’s laneway’s where most of the eclectic and funky shops can be found.

While I found plenty of things that I wanted to get, none of which fell into my backpacker budget, a somewhat reoccurring theme this weekend. I did a spot of people watching and had some gelati before heading back to the backpacker bars for a drink.

On Sunday I spoke to a few people who had recently arrived in Melbourne on the massive Greyhound trip from northern Queensland. Some had come from Fraser Island (the worlds largest sand island, about 2000km’s north) others had come from the Whitsundays – a week of diving at the Great Barrier Reef (2,500km’s away) while some had just arrived from a week in Sydney (900km’s north) Everyone had agreed that Melbourne doesn’t really have many ‘must see’ destinations but was a great place to while away a few days eating out and seeing some live bands (Melbourne, unlike Sydney has a thriving live music scene). A Scottish guy referred to it as the Glasgow of the southern hemisphere.  Someone else said it was like just like Seattle. Having never been to Glasgow or Seattle I’m not sure how to take that.

I spoke to a group of guys who were loading up their VW van ready for the 3,500 kilometre trek west to Perth.  They said they liked Melbourne but it was too expensive so they were leaving a week earlier than planned. By this stage I was starting to wish I were writing a post on pretty much any other city in Australia.

I gave up seeing Melbourne with fresh eyes. It’s a great city, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in Australia, but it’s not all that great for backpackers. To perk myself up after this failed experiment I went to my favourite dumpling place in Chinatown for some comfort food. In the booth next to me I overhead a bunch of backpackers talking about how much they loved Melbourne. A Chinese backpacker in the group was raving about the dumplings he was eating. Someone else got to see their favourite band that was touring last night, the band apparently never tours in their home town so they were feeling pretty lucky about that. Another person in the group was from Argentina and was saying how good it was to be able to go out to Spanish bars and South American Delicatessens, right here in the city.

I started to think that maybe we don’t need every place we visit to be new and different, maybe when we’re on the road we sometimes want to go to a place that reminds us a little like home. And for that, Melbourne seemed to fit the bill.

Follow Shane on Twitter or read more on his travels here at Havepack or at SanchezJalapeno.com

Headline image courtesy of -=Kuba=-

Chances are if you’re browsing this website, you love to travel. The people we meet, the landscapes we see, the food and the history – it’s the reason we save our money and keep hitting the road – we search out and thrive on experiencing the new, the foreign and different. There’s nothing that gives us greater pleasure than falling in love with a city, learning about the culture not from the outside looking in, but from immersing ourselves as best we can into a city’s psyche.

But, contrary to our pursuits to learn and experience, some people don’t travel to satisfy their wanderlust, rather they have an agenda fraught with exploitation and manipulation.

The sex trade is a thriving business – and it’s not specific to one country or region. Human Trafficking is the worlds fastest-growing criminal industry – children and women abducted and transported to foreign lands, forced into in the sex trade, often against their will. Others from poor and struggling regions turn to the sex trade to earn money to support their families. We all know that this happens – It’s a horrifically sad and regretful situation exacerbated when cashed up foreigners – people from our own cities – travel to poorer nations and prey on these victims.

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Children has published statistics from a study on the sex trade in Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. The study estimates that between 0.25% and 1.5% of the total female population of the four countries is engaged in prostitution, accounting for between 2% and 14% of the countries’ gross domestic product (GDP). While you might not consider 1.5% of the entire female population to be a very high figure, this figure covers the whole gender, not just those that are adults.  This equates to over 200,000 Prostitutes in Thailand alone.

Travel to any tourist town in Thailand and you’ll likely see any number of western men with their arms draped around the shoulders of young Thai women. I understand It’s not always sinister. We aren’t privy to the inner workings of their relationships – if it’s love then we can’t pass judgment on that.

Other times it’s an opportunity seized– A lonely traveler who sought companionship through a local – and paid for the privilege. While not a practice I would engage in – at home or abroad – if the woman is of age, involved by her own free will and no one is abused then some could argue that it’s really none of our business, dubious morality or not.

It’s the sex tourists and sex-pats (I think you can figure of what group that is) that I have the problem with.  People who plan their entire holidays (or relocate) to have cheap sex as many times as they can before going back home to their normal life, jobs, wives. These are the people that write blogs and books on submissive “Little Brown f**king machines”. They own go-go bars and brothels, organising transactions between girls (sometimes boys) and foreigners, utilising  a crude photo album full of pictures of girls in degrading positions so the foreigner can pick out a ‘date’. In an audio grab taken from a BBC interview in 2004, a local brothel owner says “The tourists, as opposed to the sexpats, are not so bad—often ignorant, yes, but lonely and innocent too.”

Alex Renteon wrote in his piece Learning the Thai Sex Trade;

“One of the self-justifications put forward by the sexpats is that the business makes everyone happy—the exploitation is two-way. It is not like normal prostitution, you hear. All the girls are smiling! (”All smile, all the time!” is an official tourism slogan). But you don’t have to be a feminazi to see that the power relationship is grossly unbalanced. The real choices lie with the man with the wallet.”

Interestingly, Westerners involved in sex tourism make up only a small fraction of the group.  60% of Thailand’s 10 million visitors come from other countries in Asia. In the brothel-lined streets of Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket, there are ‘Japanese’ only brothels. But the biggest user of prostitution in Thailand, are the local Thai’s themselves.

Researching this article a difficulty I encountered was trying to find accurate figures. Sex tourism is extremely difficult to measure. Immigration cards don’t exactly offer ‘Holiday, Business, lots of sex’ as purpose of visit choices.  Arrests are easier to measure;

The sex tourists and sex-pats that prey on children forced into the sex industry are abhorrent. Of the pedophiles that were arrested over a 2 year period in Thailand, The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Children says 25% were American, 18% German, 14% Australian and 12% English.

No one arrested was from an Asian country.

Not only are these pedophiles raping the country of their conservatives culture, they’re raping the kids as well. It makes me sick to my stomach. What can we do? I think if you are visiting a South East Asian country and you see something is clearly wrong, like an underage child entering a car with a foreigner late at night, tell someone. Make some noise. Pull them up on it, or call the police. Sure it might be innocent, and if that were the case they would hopefully respect what you were doing. If it’s not innocent you might have saved a child from whatever horror was to come.

Crossing the border with a child - click through to read the photographer's description of this scene

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