Mobissimo

In the olden days, the backpacker (usually students) would schlepp around an amazingly huge packpack, carrying everything from hot and cold weather clothes to souvenirs for Aunt Jackie.  Often the object of derision from Parisans on the Metro, the backpacker, often smelly and poor, was not the most welcome tourist.  However, enter the Flashpacker, a savvy, hip, and not as penny-pinching as the previous incarnation.

Colm Hanratty, Dublin-based editor of Hostelworld.com, said the phrase "flashpacking" remains a novelty in the United Kingdom but the phenomenon is widespread. He noted that flashpackers seem to come in two distinct age groups — "the young type, still in college, who might have all the gadgets but not that much money, and someone in later life, late 20s and early 30s, who has more money to spend and carries an iPod and a digital camera."

The world of budget travelling has changed completely.  No more showing up in a city, opening the Let's Go, getting a handful of change, and calling hostels.  Now mobiles are everywhere, trains are an inconvenience (Mobissimo searches the most low-cost airlines), and internet access is a given.  The tools have changed, but the lines to the Accademia in Florence remain just as long as before.