The Site: FlashpackerHQ.com
- New travel blog
- Blog and Photo Journal
- Travel Tech tips and advice
Flashpacker HQ is a new, but ambitious blog by Travis Ball. Billed as “Travel knowledge for the independent, tech savvy budget traveler,” the author redefines backpacking. A “flashpacker” is a backpacker with a bigger budget. As of this review, Travis has covered Japan and China and is currently in SE Asia.
The Good
Travis Ball defines the concept of the flashpacker, both literally in Flashpacker Defined! and in his traveling lifestyle. We like the way he appreciates the value of solo traveling, but also likes to stay in backpackers’ hostels and swap stories with his fellow travelers. Check out his Are Flashpackers Solo Creatures or Do They Travel in Packs blog for his views on the subject. His sociable but independent personality comes through in his blog posts and photographs.
We’ve been seeing the WordPress Thesis theme on travel blogs a lot lately. Some use it better than others. Travis uses it well. Displaying his “Photos of the Day” as a slideshow saved us the tedium of going through banks of thumbnails to find a favorite. We loved Bamboo Path, a picture of a man walking contemplatively down a bamboo path (hence the name!) in the panda reserve in Chengdu, China. We also like his “Here’s Where I Am Right Now” sidebar entry, where he uses Google Latitude to show us exactly where he happens to be at the moment. He was in Vientiane, Laos when we last checked his progress.
The Bad
When we saw that Travis was in Vientiane, we hurriedly looked for a blog post and photos of his adventures there, but could not find anything. We find that Flashpacker HQ is heavier on travel advice than on descriptive content and photos of his travels. We would like to see more of a balance.
We’re not sure that the term “flashpacker” is going to catch on the way “yuppie” did. There was a big difference between hippies and yuppies, but the dividing line between backpackers and flashpackers isn’t that great.
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