“Lonely Planet has been blamed for creating one of the most overrun backpacker trails in the world: the Banana Pancake Trail, an informal route that is as much a concept as it is a series of criss-crossing transport connections dotted with popular destinations. The Banana Pancake Trail’s roots lie in the Hippy Trail to the Indian Subcontinent. After travelling overland from London to Kathmandu in 1972, and then all the way to Sydney, Tony Wheeler and his wife Maureen took the information they’d gathered along the way and compiled a guidebook, Across Asia on the Cheap, published by their own start-up, Lonely Planet Publications. With the first book published, the sheer demand for information about independent, budget travel – and their own passion for the open road – inspired them to embark on a second journey: a year-long motorbike trip around Southeast Asia, out of which Southeast Asia on a Shoestring was born.

Today, the Banana Pancake Trail refers to a collection of Southeast Asian destinations that are extremely popular with backpackers, taking its name from the eponymous snack that is sold at traveller cafés or stalls along the way. It’s made up of a list of must-see sights, and now that air travel is cheap enough, people often fly from site to site or ‘paradise’ to ‘paradise’, rather than travel overland as they did in the past. It cannot be precisely defined because it is ever-evolving: it expands when an airport near Nha Trang is renovated or a road in Cambodia is tarred or visa regulations change. To me, the term is best used to describe locations where tourist facilities are better developed than the infrastructure used by locals, or where the proliferation of services geared at tourists has pushed other businesses further and further out, until a substantial part of a town’s centre is a tourist ghetto.

As far as it is a physical route, the Banana Pancake Trail predominantly snakes through mainland Southeast Asia – Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and, increasingly, Laos – but the Indian hippie haunts of Goa, Gokarna, Hampi, Pushkar and Rishikesh are often considered part of the trail. Some call its Indian incarnation the Hummus Trail because of the abundance of young Israelis travelling after a period of compulsory military service. A handful of scenic spots in Southwestern China such as Guilin, Dali and the towns within reach of the famed Tiger Leaping Gorge – all close enough to northern Laos or Vietnam to reach by bus or train – are sometimes classified Banana Pancake Trail territory too, as are parts of Malaysia and Indonesia.”