Top 5 characteristic of modern Free and Independent Travel (FIT)

Backpacking, flashpacking, self-guided-tour, self-travel, or Free-and-Easy, regardless how you name it, are part of the Free and Independent Travel (FIT) styles that different from the All-inclusive-packaged-travel. More and more travelers’ preference is leaning towards FIT, inclusive both younger and elder travelers. Eventhough the total amount of money spent on holiday by FIT and Packaged-Travel could be similar (albeit most of the time FIT uses less money at the and), travelers nowadays prefer FIT for its total and unbeatable flexibility. This trend is well witnessed from the high popularity of FIT related offers that received during the recent MATTA Fair and FITE section in the Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival. And it’s popularity is highly driven by the new Internet era we are all living in this world currently. So to say, we are now in the new era of Free and Independent Travel!

What is the New era of FIT?

Couldn’t agree more, with helps from the revolutionary technology advancement, the availability of super fast 4G LTE mobile broadband, FIT is now a much simpler and easier style to adapt. Let’s see what are the top 5 characteristics of a modern FIT:

1) Research and plan holidays online. We can now do all the researches on all travel destinations around the world via internet! As opposed to old school method whereby we could only get limited information on certain countries and cities from magazines, friends or friends’ friends, we can now check every aspect of the city, the latest weather condition up to the minute, the food joints around the city, the latest operas, festivals, and concerts happening in the city, or the latest status of the tragedy happened in the city. All these planning and research works can be done at your home or your local cafes by holding an either iPad or laptop in your hands!

2) Book tickets and accommodation online. Booking air tickets and accommodations was a real hassle in the old days. This was why most of us left it to travel agencies to arrange for us. But not anymore! We are now in the Internet era. We can book even cheaper flights and hotels by our own online! We can choose flight time, seats number by ourselves, and have full control over which hotels we are going to stay on our holidays. All these can be easily done through the internet.

3) Get connected all the time on travel with latest IT gadgets. The new era of FIT features social connection on the go. Self guided travelers now are carrying along tablets, netbooks, and smart phones on travel, instead of lugging heavy books, notebooks, maps, and travel guides in their luggage. Rather than mailing postcards after each destinations and get received weeks later, FIT travelers now utilising their gadgets to post updates every minutes up to their Facebook or Twitter pages. They just can’t wait to get connected wherever and whenever they go travel! And our luggage is just getting smaller and smaller.

4) Subscribe data roaming for directions. Having internet connections in their B&B or hotels is not enough. 4G LTE or at least 3G broadband service covering most parts of the world now made our FIT even more convenient. With the ever decreasing cost of data roaming abroad, we get internet access even on our trains! If we wish to walk to our hotels, tourists spots or restaurants, simply take out our tablets or smart phones and any digital Maps Apps will get us there!

5) Carry along Advanced digital camera system to capture memorial moment on travel. In the new era of FIT, we travel lighter and lighter. Throwing away heavy books and heavy SLR’s and films, we are now shooting photos with Compact System Cameras, compact digital cameras which are too light to be a burden. Unless you are travel photographers with some mission to accomplish, the extreme low image noise of night scenes photos shot with the latest DSLR will even save you from lugging heavy tripods along your travel! On top of that, built-in GPS of the current digital cameras can save all the locations of your picture objects and make sharing and pinning them even easier and much more effective!

With the above 5 characteristics of modern FIT, Tech savvy in the IT era of today will surely prefer to make their own holidays, rather than being controlled by travel agencies. Having said that, there are occasions where people still prefer to subscribe an All-inclusive-packaged-travel. Family holidays with elderly and babies, company trips organised for huge group of employees, or holidays for disabled travelers are among those special occasions.

Are you FIT enough? Please share with me if you have any more ideas of FIT here! 🙂 – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.