The online Tourist Saturation Index (TSI) comes from my favorite online travel website: Bernard Cloutier’s berclo.net. Don’t be distracted by the site’s 1999 design, because it is home to the best budget travel/backpacking information available. The guy has been to virtually every country, so he earned the right to be regarded as an authority in the Budget Globetrotter’s world.

So back to the TSI, the TSI is, as the title states, a list of the most tourist saturated countries in the world. They are ranked by comparing the number of tourists to the number of locals. He also takes into account the “exposure to tourists” (I’m assuming it deals with land area) and the area’s economic dependency on tourism.

The TSI calculates the saturation by country, and also by region. Can you guess what the most saturated area in the world is?

Top 5 Tourist Saturated regions

This tourist saturation really is not all that surprising, especially when you look at the tourist saturation by country. The Carribbean takes the first four spots!

Top 5 Tourist Saturated Countries

The Carribbean countries are pretty prevalent at the top of the saturation index. Here are some other indexes that may be of interest.

• United States: 0.00146 — We are definitely saved by the enormous area of our country. Take away Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Plains and I think our Tourist density would skyrocket.
• Austria: 0.13394 – Somewhat surprising. Seemed a bit high to me.
• United Arab Emirates (UAE): 0.01248 — I think they’re looking to boost that number to about 4.8800 with all the Dubai tourist attractions they’re pumping money into. (Dubailand, Indoor Snow ski, man-made islands, largest building in the world, etc.)

So hats off to Bernard Cloutier for his analysis of tourist areas around the world. Definitely check out the rest of his site, as it has the best free content around.

[tags]tourism, travel[/tags]

Once again, I figured it was time for a new design. The last design change took place August 5th of this year. I’ve never been totally satisfied with the old design, because it seemed like it was hard to read, and kind of crammed.
So the new designis suppose to be..

• More reader friendly
• Less cramed, more space
• Portraying backpacking ideals - rough, independent, different
• Catchy

As it usually goes, Budget Globetrotting’s new design is only fully viewable in a standard compliant browser. So what I’m saying is, get firefox, and never use Internet Explorer ever again. Internet Explorer is leaving out a few cool background images in my design.

So stay tuned for some new budget travel content coming up this week.

(Old design pictured below)

I’ve posted previously on Farcast in my series Online travel booking revolution, and it seems that they are continuing to make more noise in the Web 2.0 era. Farecast has launched a new product that protects travelers from rising ticket prices if their prediction is wrong.

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Snakes on planes cellphones on planes? Which would you prefer? Ok… it probably won’t be that bad. But who really wants cellphones on planes? Well, the new trend started by Emirates Airline will allow passengers to use their phones during flights.

USA Today has an article on it.

“…the airline expects to have a system installed in the first of its Boeing 777 fleet in January that enables cellphones to operate at minimum power levels that won’t interfere with in-flight systems. The system is to be rolled out in 100 of the Dubai-based carrier’s aircraft in succeeding months.”

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If you’re interested in traveling to the Caribbean, you know that there are a many, many islands that you can travel to. Jamaica, Virging Islands, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and even Cuba for the adventurous. So where to go?

Where to go

Since the Caribbean is the most touristic area (per capita) in the world, it’s hard finding the most “non-commercial” destination. The most attractive destination for the backpacker is probably Cuba, because of its culture and lack of commercialism. Most, including myself, wouldn’t be willing to go through the trouble to get there though.

The next best backpacker destination could possibly be Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico actually has an economy outside of tourism, so it isn’t as saturated with commercialism compared to the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands. So, that should mean travelers can expect to experience a little bit of genuine Puerto Rican culture if they go about it the right way.

Cost

• Flight: from New York to San Juan, Puerto Rico on budget airline Spirit airline is $199 one way. Stick to flying on the weekdays, as I found weekend flights may be $275.
• Accommodation: Unfortunately, hostels are scarce around Puerto Rico. The cheapest rate that I found was $45 a night from Borinquen, in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. More common budget rates range from $70-95.
• Meals: Are not too expensive. Regular (budget) meals range from $3-9. If you’re feeling classy, high end meals don’t get over $30.

What to Do

For (more…)