As anyone who’s done it will tell you, backpacking is a great way to travel. Take a change of clothes, a passport and an independent spirit, and head off on your own, with no fixed itinerary to tie you down and no tour operator to hold your hand. It feels like freedom. It feels like adventure. It feels ... uncomfortable.

Ah, there’s the catch.

Traditionally, backpackers haven’t had two baht to rub together, and joining their number has meant submitting yourself to an unremitting grind of penny-pinching international poverty.

Enter the Flashpackers. They’ve got the adventurous outlook of the traditional budget traveller, with one important difference: dosh. Usually in their thirties and forties, Flashpackers are typically on extended holidays, sabbaticals or career breaks. They probably went backpacking in their youth and they’ve lost none of that gung-ho attitude. It’s just that, now, they are equally at home living the simple life in a £3 beach hut or the high life in a five-star hotel.

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