Backpacking trips have become fairly popular thanks to social media. Be it going on a weekend backpacking trip or choosing it as a lifestyle. But there is one thing that a lot of people got wrong about backpacking trips.
I started to go on backpacking trips in 2016. At the time it was confusing, strange and fun. All at the same time.
When I had just started out, I wasn’t very confident about the world, the people in it, or my well being. It made me skeptical about even stepping out of the hotel room. I know it’s weird. But that’s just the way it was. I wanted to travel the world, go backpacking but I did not have the necessary skill set needed to do it successfully. Neither did I have any understanding of what backpacking was. So obviously I got a lot of things wrong about backpacking trips.
Where I come from, we have always lived a safe and comfortable life. In fact, insisted on it. We never bothered to explore, experiment or test our boundaries, physically or mentally. It was a (comparatively) dull life. But I happened to fall way far from the tree.
The first step of standing out is not fitting in
It was pointless to even try to explain my need to test my limits. We (me and my family) would try to have a conversation where they would ask me a bunch of questions trying to understand why I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. But soon I realized that the questions did not aim at trying to understand me rather trying to convince me that being comfortable is all that a person needs to be happy.
Me being me, stupid, naive and easy to convince, I would believe them and forget about going traveling (temporarily, but still).
I became compulsive towards backpacking. One thing I understood about the question-answer sessions was that my family did not do it on purpose. The arguments that they gave were always given to them. Staying in one place, having a modest and consistent life was the way to live for them.
But clearly, it wasn’t the same for me. I wanted different things than what they wanted. So, as soon as I realized this, the difference in our perspectives, it became easier for me to have conversations with them and explain to them my choices. Along with knowing when to avoid certain conversations altogether. Meanwhile, I was digging deeper into the backpacking lifestyle.
It’s okay to be clueless
There was something about the whole backpacking and nomadic lifestyle that always attracted me. I just never knew how to pursue it or even whom to ask. And, at the time, I wasn’t even aware of the fact that people were actually able to earn while on the move. I didn’t know anything about Digital Nomads, Influencers, and Consultants.
I always thought that the best way to go on a long term traveling trip was by earning a lot of money, saving a major portion of it and travel until you go all out. Or, you could earn for 6 months and travel for the next 6 months. So yeah, there was a lack of exposure that led to a lack of understanding.
But that lack of information never affected my intent. And I can say this with confidence that if you have strong intent, you learn to learn and start looking for opportunities. Your observation skills suddenly gain spider man like instincts and you never overlook a cue ever again.
Look for the complete story
The most important part while researching/learning/exploring is that you make sure to ask a lot of questions.
Don’t just settle with a one-liner or what things look like at the surface. Make sure to dig deeper. There is a lot more below the surface. This is exactly what helped me right the one thing I got wrong about backpacking trips.
While scrolling through my Instagram feed for inspiration and envy (to motivate myself to go backpacking), I would often mistake and take a regular trip for a backpacking trip and I would stay late up at night trying to figure out “How? How are they able to do it?”
How can a backpacker stay in luxurious resorts and five-star hotels? Where does the money come from? Why are they still backpacking if they can afford all of that? How do they pack a different dress for every day of the year in a bloody backpack!
These questions and more got me to a point where I was continuously looking for the complete story.
The thing I got wrong about backpacking trips
Pictures that we see on social media are sooooo deceiving. I was aware of this but I did not know the extent of it until I started digging for the story.
There are so many people on social media claiming to be backpacking around the world. Staying on the move, living in luxurious resorts and never wearing the same clothes in two different pictures. Which, by the way, does not qualify as a backpacking trip.
Having a backpack along with you while you travel around the world in the most expensive way possible, is not backpacking. Believing that it was, was the thing that I got wrong about backpacking trips.
Ever since I saw Into the Wild and The Motorcycle Diaries, all my confusions about backpacking cleared up.
What backpacking truly is
The first rule of backpacking is to go with the flow. So, it goes without saying that you have to be open to change. Mingle with the locals, stay with them. But not because it’s part of the tour package you signed up for, but because you are open to experiencing a different way of life. Do it because you want to experience new things.
Backpacking makes you re-evaluate everything you know, everything you have learned, and everything you believe.
No luxury involved. If you decide to go backpacking, there will be nights when you have to sleep in your tent in the middle of nowhere with no one to talk to. And, there will be nights when you will be dancing under the stars, getting drunk with the locals and sharing everything you have on your mind with people that you will probably never meet again in your life.
Backpacking is an experience that can never be truly explained using words. It can only be felt.
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