Consider Yourself A Backpacker?

Backpacking is budget travel and/or cheap travel. Backpacking has increasingly become a popular way to travel. Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, a 17th century Italian adventurer and traveler, is widely believed to be one of the world’s first backpackers. Are you a backpacker, read on to find out?

Backpacking

There are a few types of backpacking. Flashpacking is backpacking with a bigger budget. These travelers eat and stay modestly while spending more for activities at their chosen destination. Then there is gap year backpacking. Gap year backpacking refers to taking a year out to travel before one reaches university or in between university and your first job. Gap year backpacking is extremely popular among the European youths. There are of course many other types of backpacking such as the spiritual traveler, the couple and the partier, just to name a few.

One of the primary characteristics used to denote backpacking is low cost and independent travel. Backpackers do not travel with travel agencies. We stay in guesthouses and youth hostels rather than traditional 3 to 5-star hotels. As backpackers, our main mode of travel is public transport.

As the name suggests, every backpacker must be slinging a backpack over your shoulder. Your back pack must be as lightly as possible, only bringing with you minimum clothing and some essentials such as sleeping bag and toiletries. Since you only bring minimum clothing, you have to do laundry every now and then. Better still if you can wear the same shirt and jeans for more than a week!

Backpacking is not tourism. It is more than a vacation. Backpacking is a lifestyle. It is an experience meeting the locals and seeing the sights at the destination we travel to. So now, do you consider yourself a backpacker?

The Consider Yourself A Backpacker? by The Backpackers Place, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: back pack, backpack, backpacker, backpacking, budget travel, cheap travel, travel