About us

Bakpaker.com helps travellers get inspired and save money on their trip.

Inspiring Travellers

We want tell you where to go. Not like '*$&$# OFF!' but like 'What the best destinations are for what you like doing'. Travel is all about discovery - new places, new friends, new experiences and new understandings. For travel to deliver this however, you need to go somewhere.....new. The problem then is how to decide what are the best places to go to when you haven't been there before. The answer is our trip planner which has recently been voted the best travel technology in the universe by a panel of expert judges (us).

Saving Money

Ever had too much money to spend on travel? We didn't think so. Thats why we made it easier to make your krona, tugrik or peso go further. All our partner businesses offer bonuses or discounts to travellers who book direct. Thats because we don't charge them any booking commissions or transaction fees. We think life is easier when you deal direct with the service provider so we thought we'd make that easier for everyone.

Reviews

The bakpaker score is a percentile rating out of 100 indicating a how 'good' a particular hostel or attraction is relative all the others according to our algorithm. In other words, a score of 95 means that out of the 1000's of hostels and attractions in our database, this one is better than 95% of them. Our algirthm takes data from a variety of sources including user reviews, existing reviews from leading websites and keyword analysis of travel related websites and blogs.

50% is normal!

If you think back those fun filled days of statistics and probability, you may recall the bell curve. Our bakpaker scores follow that same pattern so a score of 50% means that the hostel or attraction in question is perfectly normal - typical for hostels around the world. Unlike other websites, on bakpaker.com somebody has to get a score of 0 and someone else gets 100 with everyone else spread in between. We tell you which businesses are the best and which businesses are the worst - which is important when comparing concepts that don't have an absolute measure.

Why percentile ratings matter

Choosing the best experience or accommodation for your needs is important and if you haven't been somewhere before, you need to rely on the opions of others. Unfortunately, the way much of user generated feedback is presented on the web makes it of limited use. Simply taking an average of review scores for a particular hostel doesn't tell you very much. Sure, a 70% score is better than 50% score but is 70% good? How do you measure cleanliness or fun? Using absolute scales to measure subjective qualities like most websites do is a great way to get dissapointed.

Without a reference point, an individual score is pretty useless. That's why our bakpaker score is normalised - it instantly tells you how good a hostel or attraction is relative to all the others.

Contact Us

We have offices in all major cities around the world - if you define the world as Brisbane, Australia.

To let us know that bakpaker.com is the greatest thing in travel since jaeger bombs and Swedish flashpackers were invented (or complain about something not working), email feedback@bakpaker.com

If you are a business who wants to stop paying commissions or a savy marketer who wants to advertise with us, email sales@bakpaker.com.

To send us tacky postcards from tourist traps around the world, write to PO Box 331 Morningside QLD Australia 4170

Or, talk to a human during business hours 0800 - 1700 M-F Australia Eastern Standard Time (GMT+10) on +61 7 3103 7372