Using a guide book or the net doesn,t mean you automatically lose ability to think for yourself . Another slant on guide books is that once in Sth India I went to a place recommended by the book which wasn,t on the main trail . It was good and I wouldn,t have thought of going there if I hadn,t seen it in the book . So in that case the book helped me get off the trail . Guide books are just one more resource one can use . By the way many people who adapt the " throw away the book" attitude are always borrowing other peoples books when they get a chance !.
As for the net , alot of posters on this forum want to organise things in advance on the net for their travel . But often they could be putting themselves at disadvantage in terms of flexibility and being able to negotiate prices.
As for full moon party at Ko Phangan , I hate it and whish it never started , but we should remember it was actually Thai people who started it.
Like beerlao said...guidebooks are good for orientation. When you have more free time like gap year kids or something you can just flit about. Even with time though I like having maps to orientate myself and little info such as medical care locations ,banks etc. It is good to have in your pack as a "GUIDE", not a bible.
As for then and now...it doesn't matter. Then is gone and it ain't coming back. For a first time traveler it is still an awesome feeling for them just like it was for us because its new and different no matter what you see online.
Some people want to leave it all to chance and some like a friend of mine used a book everytime she walked out the door. When I am on a limited time frame I like a little planning. And I need my walkman for long trips. It doesn't stop anyone from talking to you anyway in many places and I am bored by novels...so......
as much as the world gets smaller...think of how many friends we all have who have never gone anywhere far away. We are still a lucky bunch!
What does "trolling" mean ? .
I agree with Tezza but altho we discussed it before , the Indo visa regulations make it hard for people to have time explore the outer Indo islands .
You know, there is an easy way to make a short trip very long.
E.g., I will hopefully go to a cool place (OT on this board) I have never been to, for three weeks in june. I decided to do this sometime in february.
So guess how long I will be travelling at that cool place
mentally? 5 months! At least. I doubt that my mental return to reality will coincide 100 percent with my physical return.
And what helps to transform lame office days or train rides into travel dreams? For me, nothing is better than all these 'Where to watch birds in cool place' in the internet and on hard copy! Oups, hope my boss is not reading this forum ;-)
So does this planning and dreaming put boundaries on my real travel? In a way yes, because if I have dreamt of a place then I really want to go there. But I am still free to decide.
More then once the simple sentence of a fellow bird watcher like 'I have seen the xyz snipe at lake abc' has changed my travel plans 180 degrees, and I enjoyed places I had not given a single thought before.
And when I am back home, the number of locations I would like to visit or visit again in that country will have more than doubled anyway :-)
Happy travelling and dreaming,
Henning
I blame it on the internet that allows us to have encyclopedias of instant info at our fingertips and lets us ask a zillion mundane Q's instead of discovering for ourselves.
Eg: What is Thailand's best beach?
Doh! Well, if you say it, then it won't be for long, now will it.
Maybe we should all keep our secrets to ourselves?
I mean really, as soon as word gets around of the most recently discovered undeveloped chill out destination, people flock to it, prices jack up and a 7-11 turns up on the corner.
"Maybe we should all keep secrets to ourselves".
So you think all the developers and resort companies are not going to find out about these places if travellers merely keep it amongst themselves ?.
In most cases tourists only start flocking to these places when infasructure is built for them . To give just one example , Phi Phi island stayed unspoilt for many years even though it was mentioned in the book . It was only after regular boats started and Thai-chinese bussiness people started putting in resorts did all the tourists start coming . The idea you can keep a place secret from these people is a pipe dream . When they are not building resorts they are looking for new places to develop , and they have discovered these places long before the foreign travelllers have arrived .
Another example is Lonely beach on Ko Chang , when it was an unspoilt jungle beach , many travellers would have been unaware that a Bangkok resort company had already bought land there.
Just a digression on another aspect of "now and then". ...........................
For over 30 years tourists have been trekking into villages to see the hilltribes of Nth Thailand , now the hilltribes come to Khao San rd to sell things to the tourists.
I started visiting Asia in 1981 don't really think things have changed very much. Back then most everyone seemed to rely on the sme handful of guidebooks and hit the same places along the well-trod tourist/backpacker trail.
If I see less of that now it's only because I have seen most of the "main" places already and now seek out more obscure destinations. But on your first trip to Myanmar, you're probably going to head for Bagan, Inle, Sagaing, etc. aren't you? After that (hopefully) your traveling evolves, you branch out.
OP, maybe it's not that the travel scene has changed so much, but your personal travel style has?
BeerLao makes an excellent point. I love Thailand but probably, that country and the word "adventure" shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence. For every Phi Phi there must a thousand other beaches that are totally unspoiled, if one would do what it takes to get there. But maybe the amount of effort involve would cut into the "chill" factor? :)
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