Traveling Southeast Asia without a smartphone?

So to answer your specific question, your method will work in many cases BETTER in Asia because it isn't nearly as judgy and fancy as Western European countries, most of whom, remember, used to have massive empires and are now stuck with countries the size of Rhode Island. So they have a huge ego about everything and can be very fussy if you show up without proper reservations, etc. Asia is operating on a totally different vibe and people are usually just very charmed to see a foreigner. The exception to this is Japan, which is a very polite and very "correct" society, they are very detail oriented people, so you really should make reservations far ahead of time. I remember back in '05 you couldn't even make reservations online, everything was through the telephone and nobody speaks English. So I just went into a phone booth and called every single hotel in Shimonoseki until I got someone who would give me a room. It was brutal. Nowadays I use smartphones just for the convenience of being able to hit booking.com and see a cross section of hotels that are available. You can of course do this on a web browser in internet cafes, just understand that different cultures have a different approach to spontaneous arrivals. As long as you're doing hostel-level stuff that's fine, but be aware of weekends, holidays, etc. I remember being in India and abruptly finding out it was spring break, and in a country with a Billion people, it was like Woodstock x 1000, you couldn't even get a train out of town, nevermind find a hotel. So yeah. Just be prepared for stuff like that and your system will serve you well.

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MAPS.ME

I travelled in Asia many times without smartphone, it was back in the times when I didn't have one, so I didn't really feel like I was challenging myself, it was just normal for me. I always had Lonely Planet guide with me and was mostly booking places once I got to the spot. But I have to say that times have changed since then, there are less and less internet cafes available, as almost everyone, including local people use smartphones now. Many big hostels that are staffed by hired employees rather than owners will tell you to book online even when you are standing right in front of their faces - it's easier for them and they don't really care that booking in person is more cost effective for the business because they don't have to pay commission to booking.com or the likes. I do like this "old style" no smartphone travel routine, I still like getting lost in the city, and honestly language barrier has never been an issue for me, even when I was traveling in China, where basically zero people I met spoke any English. But actually I think I will never return to this style of traveling, mostly because it's just hmmm not necessary, I can use my phone whenever it serves my purpose and leave it at the bottom of my backpack when it doesn't. For example ever since I started using maps.me app (it's free and it works offline) I discovered so many places that I wouldn't have discovered otherwise, I saved a lot of money on taxis, tuk tuks and rickshaws just by checking a real distance from point A to point B.

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