Are You A Backpack Traveler?
There are several ways to travel – travel light, travel fast, travel in style, or doing your travel backpack style. In this list, backpack traveling gets the most flak from people who knew very little what it means, especially about the people who do travel backpack style. One thing is for certain – backpack travelers pay the cheapest.
From the experienced backpackers themselves, backpack traveling is one great way to travel around the world on the cheap. You learn to be frugal and be able to exercise your creativity when faced with challenging situations, mostly in regards to your way of traveling.
Of course, this extreme budget traveling (as they call it) is not everyone’s cup of tea. Through the years, backpackers had earned some bad press and people kept that in their minds.
There seems to be a collective indifference from the backpackers themselves regarding these allegations. After all, they had been picked up from some insignificant incidents, unfairly magnified to no end, and finally came out totally different from real events or situations.
A backpacker myth or two
Some misconceptions about backpackers are downright crass and insulting. Here are a couple of printable ones.
One pervading fiction about backpackers is that they have no idea of personal hygiene (modern day hippies and hobos), are mostly rude to other people, and have no sense of being fair. They want to get their way around the locals, because after all, they are tourists.
From the backpackers themselves who are inviting others to travel like them, the emphasis is more of “blending in, and living like the people... [and] to develop a better understanding of the culture.”
They also do take a bath, brush their teeth and change clothes regularly like regular guys.
Backpacks – to carry or not?
Critics usually over-emphasize the backpacker’s oversized backpacks on their backs. They say it contradicts the backpackers’ claims of “blending in” with the locals.
They say local people do not usually move around with huge backpacks on their backs. The locals use standard, regular luggage: suitcases, duffel bags, rolling bags and other variations, but not a backpack.
What supposedly happens is that while riding buses and trains, backpackers usually earn the ire of people because they obstruct or hurt them when backpackers move around toting these oversized backpacks.
Being mobile
Backpackers retaliate by saying the only thing correct in the critics’ allegation is the presence of the backpack. What is wrong is that they do not carry humongous versions of the bag.
What is true is that backpackers are on the move most of the time. When they do, they actually pack light and simply live on what they find around.
A few changes of clothes, some personal items (toothbrush, nail cutters), and some essentials are all they bring out when going on a trip around their new place.
They usually veer away from familiar, beaten tracks. They are more into nature tripping especially if the views (beaches, forests, caves, mountains and streams) look totally different from those at home.
Another big reason is, again, the fact that these places are usually free for everyone to enjoy. Are you a backpack traveler?
Backpack Traveling
We see them walking either singly or in tandem, sometimes in small groups of threes and fours dodging cars in city streets, sometimes stopping and browsing cards and things in some souvenir shops. They travel with that ubiquitous backpacks with them everywhere they go.
They have been called several names, some flattering, some funny, and some downright insulting tags. The most fitting of all is probably extreme budget travelers.
Travel fever
Why travel at all if you only have such meager resources in places halfway around the world all on your own?
The extreme situation is actually exciting for them and is part of the bunch of reasons why they traveled at all. They get the satisfaction knowing that they are seeing the world and they are spending only pennies to do it.
The most experienced backpackers (their other nickname) actually recommend this kind of travel. They usually tell their messages to young people. (Of course, one can see several sixty-something guys in shorts and undershirts huffing around famous tourist places.)
The best things in life
Aside from being the most economical way to travel (to make your budget and your travel days last longer), backpackers insist everything they do is part of a learning experience. They stress blending in and learning the people’s culture as much as possible.
On their part, they learn to be flexible and be able to change plans as much as they like, moving slowly across each unbeaten track. (This could mean staying for a few weeks or months or years even, if they like the place so much.)
They learn and they enjoy taking things in stride because there are no responsibilities and no deadlines to make. They also stress this is one way to grow and it is necessary to be open to all possibilities at all times.
Amenities
For the layman, there are some questions to be answered, though. What does extreme budget travel means? How do they live? What things do they leave out?
All of them already learned how to forget private rooms or baths or kitchens. For around five dollars, most of what you get is shared rooms, dormitory-style in any part of the world. (Some invest on ear plugs or some sleeping pills as a last resort to noisy snorers and talkers in their sleep.)
They also learn to forget favorite foods from home. They must learn to eat cheap local foods rich in carbohydrates. The downside is that one will likely be repeating those meals all throughout. Bananas (and other recognizable fruits) might be expensive but there could be other cheap discoveries around.
Turning local
Living on a budget and with the locals requires them to learn to integrate themselves with the culture. This means that aside from enjoying the food, they must learn to dance the music and speak the language (or be intelligible at least).
Best of all, they must learn how to commune with nature in those local parts of the world since that is what they travel for in the first place. The fun part is that all of it is free.
