On backpackers

As readers of this blog know, I spent more than half of 2019 travelling around SE Asia, covering a lot of ground in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

I didn't carry a backpack, because I'm old and have spinal issues, but I was, to all extents and purposes, a backpacker: It was an extended trip. I moved around from place to place every few days. I explored widely -- not just the "top tier" tourist destinations in each country, but loads of places that see almost no Western tourists. 

I was a backpacker, with a smart cabin trolley by my side.

Backpackers get a lot of hate from a lot of places. Government ministers can be often seen leading the pack (for example, the Indonesian Tourism Minister claiming in September 2021 that backpackers weren't welcome "to keep the country clean" once Bali reopened for tourists, as if the trash that washes up on the region's beaches was all tossed by backpackers, while all the $200 a night tourists carefully took their empty Evian bottles home with them at the end of their trip).

Some of this hate-the-backpackers may be based on economic self-interest (either the speaker owns a big 4 or 5-star hotel, or the people making the largest donations to his or her campaign do), but a lot of it seems to be more based on outdated concepts.

When was the last time you saw a bunch of old-school backpackers anywhere in SE Asia?

These days, boutique hostels with infinity pools have replaced the old-timer $3-a-bed shacks. The image of the hippy backpacker in torn trousers and a fraying Bob Marley t-shirt, spliff in one hand and banana pancake in the other, stopped being relevant sometime in the 90s. We're all flashpackers now.

So why the continued hate?

As the Indonesian Ministry for Tourism got a lot of negative press for his "clean" comments, I thought I'd like to share some facts with him (cause he's bound to read this; I had 7 visitors last month, so my site is bound to become world-famous any day now):

In 2019, I spent 51 days (7 weeks) in Indonesia, flying in to Yogyakarta at the start of August, and flying out from Flores via Bali in late September.

During that trip, I spent an average of $46.31 USD per day, so just shy of $2400 USD in total. That's in-country spend, so doesn't include flights to get to Indonesia, nor the visa. I also don't drink, so the total is a little lower than it would be if I liked a beer or cocktail of an evening.

I stayed in 20 different hotels or guesthouses in Indonesia, ranging from Solo and Semarang in Java, to Pemuteran and Pantai Jemeluk in Bali, to Gili Gede and the Senaru on Lombok, to LB in Flores. Most of them I stayed 3 nights, although there were a few where I was mostly breaking a long journey, and only stayed 1 night, and a few smaller towns where I only stayed 2 nights.

I must have eaten in a hundred different restaurants, cafes, food stalls, and hole-in-the-walls. I used local taxi drivers, and tour guides, and laundry services, and shops. I carried a refillable water bottle everywhere I went. I took 2 minute showers to reduce my water usage. I didn't eat any banana pancakes (not that there's anything wrong with that) and I didn't smoke any spliffs. I spread my money around to a lot of small businesses, owned by locals.

According to the government ministers who make pronouncements on this sort of thing, that makes me undesirable.

They'd prefer that I flew in for a week, and stayed at a 4 or 5-star resort. That I was a "quality" tourist.

The 4-star Mercure Resort in Kuta is currently offering rooms for $38USD a night. It's owned by the Accor brand, so most of the proceeds will leave Indonesia, but never mind. While I'm there, I won't eat all my meals in the hotel, so I will undoubtedly visit local spots, like Starbucks. Too bad the Planet Hollywood restaurant closed down. 

Even before Covid kicked the socks out of prices, I would have probably spent less in country for a week in a 5-star than I did for 7 weeks backpacking, and would certainly have spent less for a week in a 4-star. And almost all of the profits would have been offshored. The locals would have received no benefit, apart from mostly low-paying jobs.

Or, I could be a backpacker, and put money into the pockets of local small business owners.

Yet the government ministers still keep insisting the 4 and 5-star tourist is desirable and the backpacker is undesirable. Which begs the question: 

What are they smoking?