Yes, the global financial crisis is affecting us all in some way, and often is not good news. When it comes to travel, people tend to do it less. Holidays are shorter, or destinations are closer to where we normally live. Hotels have less bookings, airlines less flyers.

But there is some good news: as a consequence of all this prices are going down, and if you’re willing to travel now you can get some great deals that you wouldn’t have dreamed of even just one year ago.

Airline prices are into a “pleasant descent“. Low cost carriers meanwhile continue their rapid growth. According to KPMG “Traditional airlines are already moving closer to the low-cost model, but they will need to do so even more rapidly. In the long run the current downturn will squeeze the gap between low-cost carriers and traditional ones.”

Hotelmarketing.com reports that global hotel prices are down by 12%. At the same time online hotel booking, ensuring better prices is becoming the main way to pick your hotel when travelling. Traveldailynews reports how according to Hotel.info “the economic crisis and associated corporate pressure to reduce costs has created a clear trend for increased use of low cost online hotel reservation tools”.

Hostels meanwhile are upscaling to fill the gap, offering more comfort at still decent prices with “boutique” and “flashpackers” hostels.  HostelWorld puts it like this: “Credit crunch sees hostels turn from bleak to chic”.

So it’s not all bad news if you have some time (or some saving) to travel in 2009. Flashpacking seems to be a great way to do it, putting together the need for comfort with the will of not wanting to blow your budget.

Travellers needs and profiles are changing, the market is trying to change accordingly. Whoever is not able to adapt will suffer. But for the consumer, the traveller, is not bad news at all.

As Carl Sparks, general manager of Hotels.com, said: “While hotels faced a challenging environment in the fourth quarter, they rolled out the welcome mat to travelers like we have never seen before to fill rooms. Properties are continuing to offer compelling rates and added value options, so it continues to be an excellent time for people to plan trips and secure great deals.”

Another two weeks, another review of the best that has been written online regarding the Flashpacking phenomenon.

First of all we have to point out how in the last month or two there has been a sharp increase in ready-made articles from sites like Articledashboard.com or Ezinearticles.com, and a lot of fake travel blogs scraping articles about Flashpacking from other travel blogs. We take that as a good sign that the phenomenon is growing, however here we bring you only the best, fresh and original content, even if sometimes there’s only a few of those posts.

Rogue Stampede: Travel is for cheap turds. Or not.

A very interesting article against those who look from above at flashpackers, claiming that you have to rough it at all costs in order to experience the culture of a place. Nice room = no culture experienced? “Does living in a grotty hostel with drunk idiots on the bunk below you – and shaking the damned bed as it is – an authentic cultural experience?”

One of the best pieces on flashpacking (and allow us to say, on travelling as well) written lately.

a cultural experience?

The Free Radicals Blog: Flashpackers, are you one ?

Reflections on the discovery of being a flashpacker. The tech toys, the love for them, the lack of love for their weight, the excuse we might give ourselves to bring our favourite gadgets with us.

“Techno travel gear can be a good thing, having downloaded guidebooks in PDF form and Podcast walking tours, maps and street plans, can save space in a bag. Oh, man was that a complete justification for carrying these toys, or what?”

Fiji Times Online: Island group banks on backpackers

Tourism keeps growing in Fiji despite recession. In 2oo8 the growth was + 3%. Flashpackers and educational tourist are the main contributors to the growth.

That concludes this Blog Carnival. As usual you can submit your article or post to the next edition of Flashpacking Blog Carnival in 2 weeks using our Flashpacking Carnival Submission Form.

Check out the Previous Flashpacking Blog Carnivals if you missed them, and to make sure not to miss the latest news on Flashpacking make sure to Subscribe to our RSS feeds.

That time of the month again. The usual bi-weekly appointment with the best of what has been said online about Flashpacking.  Not a great quantity of articles in the last two weeks, but definitely great quality. Let’s get started.

Habitat Hostel, Singapore, in TravelPod.com

I wouldn’t go as far as saying (as claimed on the article) that this is the only boutique flashpackers hostel in Singapore, but surely Habitat Hostel is showing us that even a dorm can be quite fancy. Excellent location and funky color themed rooms.

The flashpacker’s guide to the galaxy. Times of India

One of the best pieces written lately on Flashpacking, exploring the phenomenon as it expands in India as well. And of course merit for one catchy article title.

Simple and extravagant “Flashpacking” -  Article in Chinese

Flashpacking is becoming a truly global phenomenon, as this article in Chinese demonstrates. If like me your Chinese is a bit.. let’s say rusty, you can use the Google Translate version.

Field Guide to World Travelers

Backpackers, Flashpackers, Gap-packers, Couchsurfers, Digital Nomads.. a lot of different definitions for people travelling in different styles. An excellent post to clarify all those terms.

Boutique Hostels in South America

Interesting to note how the Flashpacking phenomenon (and as a consequence Boutique Hostels) are starting to spread in South America as well.

That’s all for this Blog Carnival. As usual you can submit your article or post to the next edition of Flashpacking Blog Carnival in 2 weeks using our Flashpacking Carnival Submission Form.

Check out the Previous Flashpacking Blog Carnivals if you missed them, and to make sure not to miss the latest news on Flashpacking make sure to Subscribe to our RSS feeds.

Allow me to insert a more personal post on this Flashpacking Blog. It has to do with Flashpacking as well, of course.
The thing is.. maybe I don’t want to be a Digital Nomad. I know I am a nomad and that is not too likely to change, but maybe I want to be a slower, employed nomad instead of a digital one.

maybe it takes more effort...

There’s a lot of blogs and websites out there telling you how to “live your life making money online”:

How not to be location dependent; how to be an expert in social media, blogging, viral stuff, ebooks; how to be the ultimate digital nomad.

Many of them are very well done, and sure their authors make a very decent living out of it. But I’ve also seen a lot of bad ones, the “make a trillion online in a month” ones, where they show you proudly some Adsense receipt and ask you to give them your email address (if not also some of your money).

Well all this made me think that maybe a lot of what we see online is just a more advanced, refined version of the old crappy MLM and affiliate sites. I’m not saying this out of disillusion because I’ve tried and didn’t work for me. After all I’m living in a very affordable place at the moment (Budapest) and I’m making some little income. I could continue doing this is some place that I love and that’s even cheaper (like Thailand or Indonesia).

But as I’m trying to find out my next destination (and occupation) my thoughts go more or less like this:

I am a bit bored. It takes a lot of work, and it’s mainly work on your own: your laptop, you, and your virtual or real friends online for a chat even now and then.

If I have to spend 10 hours a day on my laptop on my own making little money (that can indeed allow me to live in some place), wouldn’t it be better then to spend only 8 hours a day in a company and make a lot more money (that would allow me to live anywhere I want)?

Then of course there’s the travel bug.

Indeed. Flashpacking around the word. Move from one destination to another, see and experience as much of you can of this old world. Well how about being a slow, employed nomad instead of a digital one? After all if you want to really get to know a place you have to live there, right? What better way to know a country than to really live there, work there, have friends and colleagues there? And then you can always use your holidays to see the neighboring countries.

In my case for example I’m thinking of moving to Singapore. Lovely place to start a new life, but quite expensive. A “real” job there would allow me to get to know the place a lot better than the impressions I had in my many visits there, and then.. well Thailand, Bali, Lombok, Vietnam, Philippines, you name it, just two hours away.

Does a more "normal" job (even an office) mean less travelling?

Don’t take this as a personal rant against Digital Nomads or “live free and make money online” websites. After all that’s what how I’m making my income at the moment. Take it as an honest brainstorming aloud, me trying to decide my future, and at the same time sharing my thoughts and hoping for some input.

Some of the resources that helped me get to this point (I cannot call it a conclusion yet) are:

What all the “Get Rich” Blogs don’t tell you but what you should know

I think @ChristiaanH point there is actually that you should act rather than just read, but combined with other readings it remembered me how there’s definitely an incredible abundance of people telling you how to get rich online.

What Should I Do With My Life?

Some good and more practical answers from @JetSetCitizen to the usual Lifestyle Design stuff we read everyday.

8 Reasons Why You Should Work in a Foreign Country

From the same author. Probably that’s simply what I’d like to hear right now, but this post, especially point 3 (You can travel more) and 8 (Did I mention? You are in a foreign country!) sounds very convincing to me.

What do you think based on your experience?

Isn’t that ironic that my thoughts of not wanting to be a Digital Nomad anymore came from tweets and blogs, and that I’m now asking your opinion online?

Please share your thoughts (comments section below, twitter, contact form, any way is appreciated). I’m not asking your opinion to get this post popular or to get backlinks, I honestly think this (almost ex-)Digital Nomad here would need to hear more opinions before deciding what to do. Thanks a mill, fellow travellers, digital nomads and corporate employees out there.

Quite a lot has been said about Flashpacking in the last couple of weeks. As usual the best has been captured here on the bi-weekly Flashpacking Blog Carnival.

Noches Multimedia, ElPais.com

Flashpacking gets attention in the Spanish world with this article, where we learn how the phenomenon is spreading rapidly across Spain, especially in Valencia and Barcelona. We also learn that the term backpacker in Spanish is mochilero, and that Flashpacker hostels can be called TechnoHostales. There you go, two more useful words for you.

Purple Nest Hostel, Valencia

La Mia Bellissima Avventura (My Beautiful Adventure)

A new Flashpacker is around, and her blog is definitively one to follow. Lauren after working 3 years in pharmaceutical and hitting a bit of a mid-life crisis decided to leave her job and her Chicago and go travelling in Italy. The blog describes her adventures and thoughts, and explains why she has chosen Flashpacking as her travel style. Lauren also came up with her personal definition of Flaspacking.

Flashpackers -The Business Class Backpacker: GoGlamourCamping.com

Reflections on Flashpacking from the guys that love Glamping, i.e. glamour camping. Flashpackers’ cousins?

Flashpackers R Us: The Chronicles of Cutie

Discussing pros and cons of Flashpacking as a couple: “Tony thinks flashpacking isn’t dirty enough, like we haven’t won our stripes. I think flashpacking means smarter backpacking and raised standards of hygiene.” Who’s gonna decide the travel style?

Why boutique hostels are booming: Guardian.co.uk

The credit crunch has somehow favoured the boom of boutique hostels (also known as Flashpackers hostels). Travel budgets are indeed getting tighter, and hostels can offer as much comfort as hotels but at very convenient prices. The Guardian explains more about how this is happening, and at the same time introduces an interactive map of The world’s best boutique hostels, a pretty good looking and easy to use mash up with Google Maps.

Flashpackers Return Home with Flashbaby! FlashpackingWife.com

One adventure ends, another one begins. Two of the most popular Flashpackers (the guys behind FlashpackingLife.com and FlashpackingWife.com) return home, with a Flashbaby. Congratulations from The Tux in Backpack!

Taking life lessons from squatters, flashpackers and digital nomads: MindtheBeginner.Wordpress.com

A personal development lesson and reminder inspired by Flashpacking: Materialism isn’t everything, freedom is. Do we really need all the objects around us? Do they make us happy? Squatters, Flashpackers and Digital Nomads have something in common: They are not “being tied down by their worldly possessions. They also acquired the skill to generate an income, wherever they are”.

That concludes this 7th Flashpacking Blog Carnival. You can submit your article or post to the next edition of Flashpacking Blog Carnival in 2 weeks using our Flashpacking Carnival Submission Form.

Check out the Previous Flashpacking Blog Carnivals if you missed them, and to make sure not to miss the latest news on Flashpacking make sure to Subscribe to our RSS feeds.