The Life of a Backpacker in Asia in the 1970s (2018)

The first few chapters of Ringworld talk about the state of the world after teleport booths make it possible to instantly travel anywhere. The protagonist is all depressed because nowhere is unique anymore. He can hop from Shanghai to Boise and see all the same people going to the same chain stores and speaking the same dialect while doing the same thing.

I can already notice the difference visiting places now compared to the 90s.

Going off the beaten path in my experience requires genuine friendships with locals. I guess if you're super outgoing and adventurous you don't need that, but in my experience it has helped immensely to have locals (again, as friends, so they're not trying to scam you or at least mislead you) take me to cool things.

I suppose it's not realistic to do this for a lot of destinations, but where it works it works well.

You could still experience something like this even in late 00s when I travelled to Asia in 2010 on year long trip which end up with me staying there for 5+ years. Heck even on my trip to India in 2007 in many places I had problem to see foreigner, I was surprised by lack of English and I think I've never travelled with another foreigner in my bus when getting around India from South (think Kanyakumari south) all the way cross cross to Delhi.

Heck I remember in 2006 you could found guesthouse meters from Khao San Road in Bangkok for 80THB with nice street meals for 20-25 THB, essentially free water from purifier stations, so you could easily exist in Bangkok as traveller in 2006 on 120-150 THB per day (3-4 USD) with food and accommodation covered and mind we are talking about extremely touristy Bangkok. In Kanchanaburi you could have even nicer accommodation in Jolly Frog for 80 THB with delicious dishes in evening night market next to train station.

That was regarding price level - regarding untouched or hardly touched places with people not speaking English, this covers big parts of Indonesia and I don't much changed in decades since author experiences, Indonesia and China are countries where you will have/had definitely problem to find English speaking person, luckily at least Indonesian language is extremely easy so I could handle at least basic communication in Indonesian after few days forced to learn it to get to places where I wanted and stay on budget, I was eating only in local warungs/street eateriers where no tourists roam hanging with locals greeting me everywhere happy to see foreign face since they rarely see one stepping out of daytrippers going from car outside to take photos and back to car.

Even in Thailand if you stay out of famous islands you could still find undeveloped islands like small Ko Chang, Ko Jum etc., some of them without any cars, without power lines from mainland running on diesel generator only in evening.

Same goes to Philippines, many places in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Of course don't expect this in tourists hotspots, but if you try to go elsewhere I am sure even in 2022 you have no problem to find places untouched by tourists where they don't see foreigner whole year. And even if they see it's very different approach whether is someone going everywhere by minivan eating in fancy hotel restaurant or you getting around and eating like local (being cheap).

Of course social media, GPS, always connected phones, offline translators changed experience a lot for those who wanna use them, but it doesn't mean it has to be for worse, I'd see translators as improvement, you are able to get much more local now really in places where no foreigner roam. OTOH GPS kinda ruined travelling, since getting lost was part of the experience and was forcing you to interact with locals, now idiots can go all they around staring at their phones without saying a single word to local. ATM is convenient for withdrawing money, but cash is still the king in developing countries.

Btw. it makes also huge difference whether you travel in peak season or off season, it's like two different worlds if you don't mind worse weather, places which are packed with tourists in peak season can be easily completely deserted in off season.

There’s a “revealed preference” thing going on among backpackers these days.

Everybody says they want to see the unspoiled remote village, but they actually go to Vang Vieng. The rough and ready backpacker accommodation of the past with a cheap bed and nothing else can’t compete with the place up the road with the pool and air conditioning.

There is remarkably little option to travel today like we did in the 90s. Because kids today don’t want that. You can spend £20/night on the place that would have been £20/night back then. But the £5/night place has been torn down and replaced with another £20 one.

To be fair I thought days of Vang Vieng glory are gone with end of tubing or is it back?

But I agree Vang Vieng was for me tourist hell, though if you get on motorbike and just ride along those karst mountains through villages and unpaved roads it was much better, the problem was the village itself mostly and tubing, I despise much more Luang Prabang full of retired package tourists everywhere you moved, that was truly much more disgusting than VV.