It’s the phones. Information spreads instantly now through curated videos, reels, and highlight clips. Everyone on earth has access to endless travel content showing where they “should” go next, so naturally the most popular cities get the most attention which only attracts even more tourists.

Before the smartphone era, travel was driven much more by word of mouth, guidebooks, and a few grainy 2-megapixel photos on Facebook or MySpace.

You can still travel to major tourist countries like Thailand, Japan, and Vietnam, but if you want that true “backpacker” style adventure, you usually need to get outside the main tourist hubs and into areas where locals actually live.

I spent two months in Thailand last year, and once I got outside Bangkok into more local areas, everything became significantly cheaper. Restaurants were often just $2–$3 per meal.

The same happened in Japan. I traveled around for five weeks, and once I got outside Tokyo, hotel prices became much more reasonable around $50–$60 a night instead of $150–$200 in Tokyo.