Backpacking on a budget isn’t just for kids anymore
Put your best foot forward: take the backpacking budget option for destinations ranging from Prague to Tokyo
By Robert Downes www.planetbackpacker.net
May I make a modest suggestion for your summer travel plans? Backpacking. With the economy tanking, Americans should consider this low-cost, gypsy travel alternative that has enthralled Europeans, Australians and other Western travelers for decades. You'll find thousands of them backpacking through Central America, Asia, Africa and India with not much more in their rucksacks than a spirit of adventure and a rock-bottom budget. I know whereof I speak, having spent five months backpacking solo around the world in 2007. My trip involved cycle camping across Europe and backpacking on through Egypt, India and Southeast Asia. The journey is chronicled in my book, "Planet Backpacker" (www.planetbackpacker.net), which was written on the fly in 100 internet cafès on my way around the world. Surprisingly, I met few American backpackers in developing countries such as India, Vietnam and Malaysia, despite the fact that there were thousands of other Westerners lounging on the beaches of Asia.
A MATTER OF STYLE In fact, few Americans seem to understand the basics of international backpacking as it is understood by budget travelers from Europe or Australia. Many Americans equate backpacking as a 'backcountry' experience, like camping out in the Rockies and dining on gorp. So, let’s start with semantics: overseas, “backpacking” is a style of budget travel that relies on local transportation along with lodgings in hostels, pensiones, or the same low-cost hotels that the locals stay in. And you don't have to travel in the Third World to take advantage of bargains. Even pricey destinations such as Tokyo can prove affordable, once you learn the ropes. Puerto Vallarta offers a good example which many Americans may be familiar with: you can stay with your fellow gringos in the tourist ghetto of luxury hotels far to the north of town and never see much of the local culture; or you can catch a local bus to the Zona Rosa in the heart of downtown and stay at a hotel that caters to Mexican tourists and businessmen. The second option is available at a fraction of the cost and offers a more authentic and culturally-interesting visit.
THE MIDDLE AGES Increasingly, backpacking appeals to older travelers who still have fond memories of bumming around Europe during their college years. As far back as 2000, the London Times was reporting that the median age of backpacking travelers was creeping up as more middle-aged professionals and retirees found time on their hands and a yen for travel. I met a surprising number of older professionals on my way around the world: lawyers, three investment bankers, several physicians and a gourmet chef -- with ages ranging from the 30s through the 60s -- who abandoned their careers for six months or a year. I turned 55 in the nirvanic splendor of Palolem Beach in the state of Goa, India -- a pretty cool way to feel "young" again. Speaking of growing older, you might be surprised to learn that many hostels welcome visitors of all ages these days. For instance, I shared a hostel dinner with a crowd is British cyclists in their 60s and 70s in England's Pennine mountains. In Budapest, my hostel dorm of 10 bunkbeds included not only people of all ages and nationalities, but a co-ed shower as well. You'll also find that many hostels offer small rooms at premium prices for couples. On a trip to Japan last fall, my wife and I stayed in Tokyo's temple-filled Asakusa district for $58 U.S. per night. True, our room at the Khaosan Tokyo Smile hostel wasn't much bigger than the interior of a Volkswagen, but we snuggled on the lower mattress of a bunkbed and counted ourselves lucky not to be spending $500 per night at the hotels seen from our window. But can families and backpacking mix? Sure. On a bus ride through Nicaragua, I met a Danish police officer who was traveling across Central America with his wife and three children. "This is our chance to show our children the world," he said. "We teach them their school lessons each day and they're also learning Spanish. They love it." Similarly, on a hike across the rainforest of Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica this winter, my wife and I met an extended family of seven from Anchorage, Alaska. Their youngest child was seven-years-old and they were thrilled to be hiking a total of 25 miles across the densest and most biologically rich jungle this side of Brazil.
DISCOUNT SENSATIONS Backpacking offers a world of sensations at a discount. Like spending less than $10 for a dinner of jumbo sweet & sour prawns, ginger rice and garlic naan at a beach bar in Goa with a view of the smoldering sun going down on the Indian Ocean. Or paying $13 for a room with a view of the sea in Malaysia, with a dove cooing outside your window each morning. Or $6 for an hour-long coconut oil massage in a palapa-covered longhouse on the beach at Krabi in Thailand. Oh yeah, and lots of good times, cameraderie, sights and adventures too. Snoozing on the top bunk in a second class "hard sleeper" train in India with a Bengal family for bunkmates... Riding donkeys to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, or elephants in the hills above Chiang Mai, Thailand... Watching a holy cow wander around your restaurant while dining in India... Comparing notes with your new backpacking friends from Russia, France, Brazil, Denmark... We backpackers know, because we've been there, done that. In fact, I enjoyed all of the above experiences on my trip around the world, living out of a pack not much bigger than a hand-tote.
ALL GROWN UP The international backpacking scene has 'grown up' in terms of services over the past decade. With an estimated 100,000 backpackers traveling the planet at any given moment, a tourist infrastructure has evolved which offers a go-anywhere network of travel services. You used to have to be a bit of an Indiana Jones to bum around the world with a pack on your back, but no longer. Over the past 10 years, the travel industry has flexed its muscles, making remote trips as easy as banana pancakes. There are thousands of travel offices on street corners across Asia, for instance, which can book anything from an elephant safari to a three-day trip to Cambodia or Laos in a matter of minutes. Want to ride an overnight bus halfway across India? It will pick you up at your hotel. Want to float down the Mekong through Indochina on a kayak or a bamboo raft? It is easily arranged. Then too, there has been an explosion in go-along backpacking travel services, such as Intrepid Travel (www.intrepidtravel.com), based in Australia, or GAP Adventures (www.gapadventures.come) in Canada. Both offer small-group adventures at remarkably low rates, considering the fees include transportation in-country and lodgings. You pay your own way with meals, which tend to be shared events with your fellow travelers. I've enjoyed four trips with Intrepid Travel, including journeys through China, Egypt, India and Vietnam, with a fifth to South Africa planned this fall. The Melbourne-based company offers more than 300 trips, ranging from cycling through southern China to full safaris across the length of Africa or South America. Typically, a group leader shepherds an average of 10 backpackers through situations you'd never hope to encounter in a traditional tour. Like bouncing around on the back of a cyclo taxi in Hue, for instance, or trekking on camels through the Sahara. Single travelers are common on Intrepid outings, and women tend to outnumber men. You travel on local buses, enjoy home visits with native peoples, and generally see 10 times as much for one-tenth the price. My memories of backpacking with Intrepid Travel include climbing Mt. Sinai, fondue dining in Muslim China, tracking tigers in India, sailing down the Nile on a felucca with a Nubian crew, and buying a gorgeous hand-tailored wool suit in Vietnam. Not your typical backpacking trips. Of course, backpacking can also have its down side, like finding out that your partners on a park bench are homeless druggies; or plucking ticks off your partner after a long hike through the jungle. Or getting lost in Mumbai at night, without a clue as to your hotel’s direction in a city of 20 million. These too I have “enjoyed.” So backpacking is not always comfortable or convenient. At times my wife and I have found ourselves sleeping on the decks of ships or up all night on a rocking train. We've been stuck for hours on chicken buses and have been hopelessly lost in cities ranging from London to Mumbai and Osaka. But those are the memories you love, aren't they? And one of our favorite perennial memories is coming home with the knowledge that we've spent half as much on a backpacking vacation compared to the roostertail of cash you leave in your wake on a traditional trip.
RESOURCES:
Where to stay: www.hostelworld.com has over 20,000 hostels, guest houses and budget hotels online, ready for easy booking and discounts for members.
Need company? Check out www.intrepidtravel for scores of escorted trips with kindred spirits.
Online advice: The web offers your heart’s desire for backpacking advice on sites such as www.backpackers-planet.com, www.virtualtourist.com and www.planetbackpacker.net. Robert Downes is the author of Planet Backpacker: Across Europe on a Mountain Bike & Backpacking On Through Egypt, India & Southeast Asia -- Around the World. The Wandering Press, 2009. www.planetbackpacker.net.
Copyright 2011 - Robert Downes - The Wandering Press - write me: bob@planetbackpacker.net
