Why I’m becoming a terrible backpacker

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I’ve come to a realisation lately.

Around 18 months ago I wrote a post ambitiously entitled Why I’ll be a 73 year old backpacker, where I outlined the reasons that I’d likely still be wandering the planet as I entered my eighth decade upon it. While I still stand by that statement and the curiosity that drives it, it’s become apparent that I’m already becoming a pretty terrible backpacker at half that age.

To be honest I’m not sure I ever really fitted the stereotype all that well, even back in my early twenties. I didn’t have a gap year. I often travelled with a girlfriend. I never got eaten by bedbugs. I used deodorant. Every day, in fact.

These days, though, I fit it even less. It seems as if the longer I spend on the road, the less β€œbackpacker-like” I’ve become. It’s been almost two years since I started this trip, and with each passing week I realise the following to be true.

Dorm rooms annoy me…

Dorm room

I hate to say it, but there you go. With the odd exception, I just don’t like dorm rooms any more. I’ll refuse to stay in anything bigger than a six bed dorm if I have a choice, and even then I’ll be sick of it after a few days. Waking up half a dozen times a night to the sounds of farts and snoring is no longer my idea of a good time. I don’t need to hear drunken conversations at 1am, tearful Skype calls at 3am or rustling plastic bags at 5am, and picking someone else’s suspiciously curly hairs out of the blocked shower drain gets really old, really quick.

As a result, you’ll pretty much never find me in a hostel in cheaper parts of the world – if I can get a guesthouse for $10, I’m not going to stay in a dorm for $4. No, not even if they include a free beer at check-in. Even in more expensive countries, I’ll be checking out the prices of private rooms and apartment rentals long before I opt for the 20 person dorm. I stay in a lot of Airbnb rentals these days (use this link to get $25 off your first stay), and to be honest I much prefer them.

Β 

…and so do many backpackers

Backpackers

I used to love conversations with other backpackers. I never thought I’d tire of the endless mix of accents and stories, plans and histories. The problem, for me at least, is that many of those conversations become interchangeable after a while.

Where are you from? How long are you travelling for? Where are you going? Where have you been? How drunk did you get? Who did you sleep with when you were there?

The locations change, but the story stays the same. Groups of 19-year-old guys are not that different the world over, whether they’re carrying their life on their back or not. My two months in New Zealand earlier this year were mostly spent in hostels, and I heard some variation of the above conversation every night. Typically, it was shouted across a nearby table by a sweaty dude from Birmingham, clutching his can of lukewarm beer as he tried to hook up with the bemused Swedish girl on the other side.

I get it, I really do. I used to be that guy. When you’re on a one, three or six month trip around the world for the first time, these stories are genuinely interesting. For me now, though, they are incredibly dull. Not every conversation is like that, of course – I’ve met some amazing people here and there with fascinating things to say. They just seem to be in very short supply.

I guess I’m just getting old and cynical.

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The only trousers I carry are jeans

Dave in jeans

Do a Google search for β€˜packing list’ and you’ll find half a million blogs full of photos of khaki shorts and sensible brown travel shirts. While many of the details will vary slightly, they’ll all agree on at least one thing. Don’t take jeans. They’re bulky and heavy, hot to wear and slow to dry.

Yup, they’re all of those things – and yet a pair of jeans is the only pair of long pants that I own. They’re easily the most practical, useful item of clothing in my backpack – I can wear them to a decent restaurant one day then ride a couple of hundred kilometres on a scooter across Thailand in them the next. They’re comfortable, ubiquitous and unremarkable. I love them.

Backpacker credibility: zero. Care factor: about the same.

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I carry plenty of clothes, and wash them once a week

Dave and Lauren

There’s a real pissing competition amongst some long-term backpackers about just how light they can travel.

I travel with only carry-on. Well, I travel with two t-shirts and a pair of shorts. Well, I’ve had just these y-fronts and half a flip-flop for the last eighteen years on the road.

Yeah, to be honest I couldn’t give a shit. I like to be comfortable, I like to have more than three clothing combinations, and I don’t actually want to look like a dirty backpacker my entire life. It’s nice to be able to spontaneously decide to go to a decent bar or take a friend out to a good restaurant without getting eyeballed by security from half a block away.

Similarly, I don’t particularly like smelling like an armpit and trying to work out which t-shirt least resembles a biohazard each morning, so I’m kinda religious about washing my clothes once a week. With laundry soap. And not in a hand basin.

Crazy.

Β 

I don’t drink all that much

Drunk Dave

Once upon a time I was definitely the guy at the dive bar drinking cheap beer and watered-down shots all night with the best of them. These days, however? Not so much.

When your trip doesn’t have an end date – when it’s a lifestyle rather than a gap year – it’s hard to justify drinking heavily every night. Nether my bank balance nor my liver could deal with two solid years of JΓ€germeister shots, even if I wanted them to.

It may be related to dating someone whose alcohol tolerance is about half a can of cider, and working online most days undoubtedly has something to do with it too. It’s tough to hit deadlines when you’re lying in a darkened room wishing you were dead for most of the day.

Sure, there’s exceptions – pretty much every sailing trip I’ve ever been on, for instance – but most of the time I’m much more likely to have a couple of drinks with lunch than I am to be playing beer pong until dawn.

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I’ve never had sex in a hostel dorm. Ever.

Yup, it’s true. I’ve never had sex in a hostel dorm room. A drunken kiss after leaving the bar or wandering hands in the street outside is about as far as it’s got. Having heard far too many grunting, squeaking, embarrassingly brief attempts by others over the years, I’ve never felt the need to keep my dorm mates awake with my own sexual antics.

I guess I’m just a terrible backpacker.

Β 

I’ll pay more for convenience

Plane at sunset

Once upon a time, there was literally just one criteria that I used to make decisions about how I travelled. Price. I didn’t care how long the train ride was, how many layovers the dodgy budget airline had or how big the holes in the roof of my bungalow were. If it was cheap, I took it.

These days, things have changed a bit. While I’ll still sort by price rather than anything else, I do actually consider other factors. If the flight requires me to get up at 4am, or arrive at midnight, I’ll probably look for something else. If there’s a direct option that costs a little more rather than sitting around in transit lounges all day, I’ll usually take it.

If all I want to do is get to my destination and there’s a two hour flight for $100, I won’t be paying $40 to sit on the bus that takes 27 hours instead. If it’s five bucks for the room with no fan or bathroom and double that for the room with both, I’ll opt for the latter.

I still travel on a budget. It’s not like I have a choice in any case. It’s just that now and again, I’ll stretch that budget a little to try to avoid the worst of the bad travel days. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have even considered it.

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I sometimes find myself jealously eyeing up household items

Coffee

Ok, so this one has really surprised me. It’s not that I want a house, you understand. It’s certainly not that I want all of the crap that most people have in their houses. Living out of a backpack is one of the most liberating things I’ve ever done. It’s just that, well, sometimes I stay in an apartment or crash on a friend’s sofa, and I see some household item that I’d really like to be able to use now and then.

A coffee machine, for instance – there’s only so much Nescafe you can drink in your life, and I think I’ve reached my limit. Having a refrigerator would be handy, since I prefer my beer cold and my milk without chunks. After months of using laundromats, I also do tend to start drooling slightly when I see someone with a washing machine of their own.

Even an electric toothbrush or a working printer would be nice now and then.

It’s the little things, I guess.

Β 

So I guess all of that tells me that I’m just a failure as a backpacker. Where’s my credibility? How on earth will I ever be able to show my face in the hostel common room again?

You know what? Somehow, I think I’ll probably get over it. There isn’t a single right way to play this game, just the way that works for you. I might be a terrible backpacker these days, but I’m a very happy long-term traveller.

See you on the road. Just, perhaps, not in that 20 person dorm.

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66 Responses to “Why I’m becoming a terrible backpacker

  • Can completely relate to a lot of this, Dave and I am with you on jeans. You can wear them for weeks on end and they are durable. Nothing beats a good pair of jeans on the road.

    • Precisely! So many people make a big song and dance about not carrying jeans, but frankly I couldn’t care less. They’re comfortable, practical and acceptable dress in a lot more places than a pair of zip-off hiking pants, that’s for sure!

  • Two days ago I put up an almost identical post on my travel blog (Lithuanian version). I am so tired of noise and lack of sleep and the usual crowd that I’m ready to move on and pay for comfort. I sleep at night. So, you are not alone.

  • Dave, we found a v good hotel, incl brekkie, with a shared kitchen in Adelaide cheaper than a double in any hostel, so agree hostels are not the only way,California got v quirky motel rooms cheaper than hostels too, welcome to my backpacker not quite flashpacker world. But a sunday sesh at Riverside is still brilliant thanks for that tip. πŸ™‚

  • You’re clearly a Bad Person who is No Fun To Be Around At All, and you’re totally not invited to the pub later. Sorry.

    Alas, that goes for me too, because most of these things apply to me too. But…I feel a weird kind of tension in saying No to these things, as well. Because sometimes it’s fun to try these things out, if only to remember why I don’t do them normally. And sometimes, it’s great for a bit of comedy-suffering to be able to write up in a blog.

    But here’s part of what I feel: “backpacking” is ripe for a reboot. Part of me wants to storm this castle, tear the skuzzy, beer-spattered flag down and replace it with something clean, freshly ironed and smelling faintly of lemon. Travel is what you make it, goes the old trope – well, I kinda want to make backpacking into something other than these things. And it looks like you do too.

    Take hostels. I’ve stayed in enough of them to hate hostelling – except, I stayed in one in Edinburgh (found via Kash of ‘Luxury Hostels of Europe’) and it was…just really *great*. The showers were hot and showery. Everything was clean. I enjoyed bumping into people and regretted not having the time to dig into their stories. It was like Ronald D. Moore took the concept of “hostels” and remade it into something that for the first time was capable of winning a Peabody Award. It was like that.

    I’m trying to change the way I approach backpacking and camping. I want to do them differently.

    I challenge you to do the same, in as creative a way as you can. Forge it anew. Fly that flag.

    • Insightful comment, Mike, and one that I agree with wholeheartedly. There is the occasional hostel that I come across which is truly fantastic – there were a couple in NZ, for example – and it reminds me of just how great they really can be. Then I head to my next destination, the hostel is dire with a clientele to match, and I shake my head and wonder why I even bothered.

      Many of the better places in New Zealand (for me) were smaller hostels out in more rural areas. They attracted a different crowd as well – a little older (mid 20s to mid 30s) and much more chilled out. Many of those locations had little to no cell signal and expensive wifi, so it forced people to hang out and interact like they used to back in the day before iPads and laptops took over hostel common rooms. But that’s a whole different conversation. πŸ˜‰

  • Don’t look at is a backpack failure. Instead consider that youve graduated from backpacker to flashpacker!

    I was a late starter to longer-term travelling (in my 40’s) – and am in the throes of planning for my big next one (leaving next week). I will be overpacking the clothes Γ‘ bit for the same reason that you mention – I like variety! But at least time, I’m making sure things coordinate a bit better and that I will actually wear them more than once.

    And forget about the 27 hours of bus rides from hell. I’ll take a plane thanks, if there is no worthwhile places to stop at to break up the trip or if the cost is reasonable.

    And dorms? Forget it. Never have, never will. I like my privacy, and I like my sleep. No sleep = grumpy traveller!

    • I’m also quite happy to wear the flashpacker tag. Given the amount of tech I travel with these days to enable working online (and running a travel tech site in particular!), it’d be hard to wear any other tag really. πŸ™‚

  • Great post. The novelty of certain things does wear off quick. My first trip I would have been willing to sleep in a ditch, now after close to 2 years traveling the thought of even a 6 person dorm is not inviting.

  • Great post, I can relate to the household item party, so true!

  • If you’re a terrible backpacker, I most definitely am one too, then! I also couldn’t give a crap about packing ultra-light, and I have a resentment for what I call ‘packing snobs’ who look down their nose at people with a lot of stuff! I’m on the road constantly, I need stuff for all weather conditions. Thanks for this post, it resonated a lot!

    • You’re welcome, Emma. Travel snobs of any variety are pretty dull to be around really, and packing snobs are no exception. πŸ˜‰

  • I mean, humans evolve right? That’s just life. I’m no fan of dorm rooms anymore, and I am always willing to shell out a little more for convenience. And I too lust after appliances (so weird). To stay the same always would be madness, so I’m trying to stay open to the changes that come my way.

    • At the end of the day, it’s not a competition. I really couldn’t care less what anybody else thinks of the way that I travel. As long as I’m happy with what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, that’s really all that matters to me.

  • There is literally no way I could love this post any more than I already do πŸ˜€

  • I don’t think the ultralight dorm bed backpacker lifestyle is sustainable forever. It’s basically like being in college with no end in sight, eating ramen daily and wearing pajamas to class. I think pretty much everyone eventually yearns for a comfortable bed in a quiet room, and a shower inside so you don’t have to walk down the hall clutching your clean clothing and toiletries along the way.

    That said, I kind of miss it. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the idea of owning more than two or three ties annoys me to no end.

    • Ahh yes, the shuffle down the hostel corridor with everything I need, trying to balance it all precariously on a single hook in the shower cubicle. Which will, of course, fail miserably and end up with all of my clean clothes falling into a puddle on the floor.

      Not that I have first hand experience of that or anything……

  • Maybe I’ll feel the same after years on the road too!. I actually have an apt and about 20 items of clothing (which I still think is too many!) It’s strange how you can change πŸ˜›

    • Heh, we’ve probably got the same number of clothes … it’s just that mine are all sitting in a backpack!

  • Awesome! Love this post. Especially the jeans part. πŸ™‚

  • I can relate to all that (probably not surprisingly). I enjoy travelling – the only thing I ask for at the end of a long hot day is a comfortable bed and my own space. It’s not that I don’t like people – I just don’t like people 24 hours a day! I enjoy the occasional wine or beer at the end of a day – but one thanks and that’s it so I am ready to hit the road the next day.

  • Amen. I think it comes with age and extensive travel. When I was 22 and backpacking, no problem. Now, at 33, no freaking way. I want a quiet room, a comfy bed, room to stretch my legs on a long-haul light and something other than pasta for dinner in the hostel kitchen.

  • I guess I never really backpacked well. First, I didn’t have a backpack. I interspersed hostel stays with budget hotels for some peace. I’ve NEVER understood the “don’t bring jeans” thing. Maybe that makes sense for a 2 week jaunt through Europe, I don’t know.

  • Can so relate on the drinking part now! Joining a couple mates on there journey in a couple months, they will be on the beers every night. Ill be off exploring the city at times while they do that πŸ™‚

    • It’ll be interesting to compare respective sets of photos at the end of the trip… πŸ˜‰

  • The backpacker lifestyle definitely has a lot of parallels with the college lifestyle. I was totally willing to crash anywhere, drink heavily and not wash my clothes as often as I should when I was in my early twenties – whether I was traveling or at home. I feel less like a backpacker too these days, and I think it just has a lot to do with growing out of the college lifestyle. I guess even long-term travelers can’t escape growing-up :).

    • The funny thing is when people ask me what backpacking life is like my answer is college on the road. It’s almost identical in every way. Care free attitude, temporary relationships, alcohol/drugs, people staying way too long in the dorms. lol

  • Too funny! My next post is something similar about how I fancied myself as a backpacker but realized that no, I’m really not. Had my head nodding in agreement with you all over the place.

    And AMEN about the Nescafe! I bought one of those single press-pots in Vietnam just so I wouldn’t have to suffer through Nescafe anymore.

    • I actually took a little French press with me to Thailand when I started this trip a couple of years ago, just because I knew that I wouldn’t be moving very often for the first few months and wanted a decent coffee in the morning without leaving the house for it. I kinda wish I hadn’t got rid of it, as impractical as it became as soon as the actual travelling started in earnest. πŸ˜‰

  • The best thing to throw back at everyone so says ‘don’t take jeans’: snowgum travel jeans. Half the weight and half the space of normal jeans. These are amazing.

  • I never really got this labeling thing. Could never identify myself as a backpacker because some of the stuff “backpackers” do is crazy to me. Plus I love my jeans and clean sheets. We’re travelers. Plain and simple. I met one guy that walked 3 miles in Bangkok to save 50 baht.

    • And let me guess, that same guy then went and dropped 500 baht on over-priced bottles of Chang on Khao San Road that night? πŸ˜‰

  • I think you summed it up when you said there’s no right way, just the way that works for you! I mean I like hostels, but won’t stay in anything more than a 6 bed dorm, and a 20 bed dorm sounds like my idea of hell on earth! I’ve always taken jeans with me too. And I also don’t drink (well bar the very rare exception). But I’m comfortable with that.

    Keep doing what you’re doing and enjoying it!

  • We started our backpacking lifestyle much later than many. We did the dorms and the late nights and while it was all fun at first, it got pretty tiresome! Having been traveling since 2007 we now definitely enjoy the little extras like a private room in a dorm or budget hotel.

    I agreed with the leave the jeans at home theory until we got to New Zealand and I really missed my jeans. My first purchase abroad was a new pair and I still have them with me today Call it my luxury item I guess!

    Now we have discovered house sitting and use that time to indulge in the household luxury items like a coffee maker and the elusive laundry machine. We have found this is one of the best ways for us to travel!

    Very nice write-up!

    • Yeah, the jeans thing makes more sense if you’re travelling in SE Asia or elsewhere in the tropics (although even then, I wore them on long scooter trips or when going out somewhere that shorts weren’t appropriate). In temperate climates, however? Jeans all the way! πŸ˜‰

  • Dave, I feel you on everything here. Everything. Dorm rooms tend to piss me off now, and the largest I stayed in recently had 10 beds – including, one night, two drunk Brits from Portsmouth who woke everyone up at 5am, then one of them shagged a rather large German girl, left the used condom blocking the shower drain, and shit in the bidet. I don’t know why the hostel had a bidet, but it’s not there to be shat in. Ick.

    As for convenience, I’m all about that, too. With my itinerary in Colombia, buses between places I wanted to go would have taken 10-12 hours+ each time. For not much more, I just took planes.

    I carry very little in my backpack other than my computer, my camera, and clothes. I like having a lot of clothes to choose from, and will do laundry a lot. IN A WASHING MACHINE. Revolutionary.

    As for drinking, I’m the same as you really, and have never had sex in a hostel dorm. Maybe just a quick kiss. And the conversations…I’ve met great people, but in Odessa I was sat among about 8 guys who all had the sole aim of going out to finger Ukrainian girls at the Black Sea’s monster nightclubs. This group of 18-19 year old Dutch guys were hanging onto this (devastatingly attractive and musclebound) Italian guy’s every word. I was sat there cringing.

    Well, this is a really long comment so I’ll stop now.

    p.s. I saw a really sexy toaster the other day and I wanted to buy it.

  • Hi Dave,

    Hitting the travels in my mid thirties, I can totally appreciate many of your thoughts and actions. Can’t get on board with the jeans yet but maybe in good time.

    Nice post.

    St

  • Hi Dave,

    Hitting the travels in my mid thirties, I can totally appreciate many of your thoughts and actions. Can’t get on board with the jeans yet but maybe in good time.

    Nice post.

    St

  • I hear ya mate! I promised myself I would never stay in a dorm room again!!! haha

  • You are not a bad backpacker, you jsut getting older. Now you consider that the word “comfortable” is more important than the word “cheap”.

  • You’re not a terrible backpacker, you are just backpacking 2.0 now.

  • people have sex in shared room hostels? man.. and I thought I was going to be able to travel for cheap.. hostels out of the question.

    I really enjoyed reading this.. I’ve never backpacked before and it gives some perspective. quite entertaining read as well.

    • Yeah, it’s not like it happens all the time or anything… but it definitely happens more often than it should. πŸ˜›

  • I’ve never understood the no jeans thing… you can wear them forever without washing and they go with everything and you can wear them almost anywhere. The only place I didn’t take jeans when traveling was SE Asia because it was too hot to wear long pants that weren’t made of something super lightweight.

    I still fully commit to the dorm thing but I ALWAYS bring earplugs. I cannot sleep when people snore so I usually have them anyway but they block a wonderful myriad of sounds no one wants to hear. Also, an eye mask, for when people come home at 5am or wake up at 5am to go out for the day and decide that’s an acceptable time to turn on the lights.

    I have never been on a months-long backpacking trip so I don’t know how I would pack then; I never have a problem packing for shorter (2-3 week) trips, but when I have gone abroad to live for several months at a time, I’m a notorious overpacker. I’m going off on a working holiday to NZ soon so hopefully I can narrow down my packing again but I dunno!]

    PS I confess that I did once have sex in a hostel dorm BUT in my defense, there was only one other person in the 6 bed dorm at the time and he seemed to be sound asleep (snoring and all) the whole time.

    • Yep, earplugs and eye masks all the way. They definitely help with the sleeping thing, but I still find that dorm life starts getting old after a while.

      I think it’s totally fine for trips of a few weeks or whatever – if that was how I was travelling these days, I’d probably do it just to keep costs down and meet new people – but after a couple of years, I’d prefer to have my own space most of the time.

      And you’re a dorm-room shagger? Tsk tsk… πŸ˜‰

  • Marysia @ My Travel Affairs
    11 years ago

    Lol, you read my mind! The most I love comments about my bag…how do you carry this around? You have packed half of your wardrobe? Ha ha ha
    And please people stop having sex in dorms!

  • For us, the most annoying thing in hostels in throwaway friendships. Nobody is there to make friends, they just want to pour their story on others, and then forget them and leave. Nobody is really interested in others except for showing-off with their travels. Thanks to that whenever we stay in hostel, we don’t really socialise with anyone.

    • I probably wouldn’t generalise quite as much as that. While there are plenty of people who, as you say, just want to pour their stories on others and leave, there are always a few who don’t fit that mould at all. As I think I mentioned, I’ve met some amazing people in hostels – some of whom are still friends to this day. It’s just that they’re often hard to find.

      I think, too, it’s easier to not socialise with others when you’re part of a couple or group. Every time I’ve travelled solo I’ve made the effort to meet new people, because talking to myself day after day gets pretty old. When you’ve got a travel companion, you don’t feel the same pressure to do so.

  • Hey Dave,

    I started travelling when I was 29 and whilst I have had a few funny nights in dorms, and downed a few shots in my time (ok a lot) I’m so with you on everything here!

    Nowadays, I’m more interested in finding amazing travel experiences and amazing travel companions than just partying my way around! I still meet fun people to spend a night or two with, but it’s not the be all and end all!

    So with you on the jeans. The first time I went travelling, I didn’t take them and missed them so much, had them sent out to me. Always handy!

    Nowadays, I’m not a massive fan of dorms. I was once in a 10 bed one in Phi Phi (I know, I probably should have paid the extra couple of quid for a nice room) and this guy working there brought back a girl in the middle of the night. Next morning, we all get up, and the guy is on his back, passed out, completely starkers in view of everyone! Morning!!!!!

    Not something I want to experience all the time, but it was pretty funny when I saw him later in the day!

    Great post!

  • Well… you’re not a regular backpaker anymore Dave. You’ve fallen in another “category” long ago. I have done two years wandering around the globe and also experienced that gap. I really enjoy your blog. Keep on going!

  • I’m approaching 50 and I don’t mind hostel dorms, but I definitely pick ones that are smaller and move if the drunkenness is just too over the top. I also don’t mind being the grumpy old lady who turns on the light and tells the dorm sex offenders to fuck off somewhere else to do their business!! But I sleep really soundly so….
    I always thought I’d want more comfort as I got older but have found the opposite, that the discomfort actually bothers me less. I am, however, totally over whingeing westerners!! I will choose accommodation and travel based on location and convenience definitely – have never seen the logic in taking a 28 hour bus ride when a perfectly good flight can be had for less than $100.
    Drinking excessively is for idiots. It’ll eat up more than half of your budget and totally cripples you for enjoying your environment. I often wonder why people don’t just stay at home.
    The ultralight mob are a myth in my experience. Most people I’ve seen carry a pretty comprehensive wardrobe, with at least 3 changes of shoes and a hairdryer. Not to mention a well stocked makeup kit – you never know who you might meet in a hostel dorm bathroom!! I don’t think it’s possible to travel long term with a limited wardrobe unless you change it regularly. You like jeans, go for it! I personally find jeans too hot for the tropics.
    I’ve never had sex in a dorm either – I’m far too noisy when I’m enjoying myself!!!

  • If you hate instant coffee may I recommend this little gem…? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smartcafe-Hot-Cafetiere-Mug-Platinum/dp/B0007MTNJ0

    It will probably change your life.

    • That looks rather awesome – and well-priced, too! Thanks for the heads-up! πŸ™‚

  • Alex Heffron
    9 years ago

    Haha so funny!! Agree so much with this and I’ve only been ‘backpacking’ a month!

    The funniest story so far was a guy telling us he’d sawed his toothbrush in half to save on weight and space in his backpack! He then proceeded to tell us how he packed his bag… I’m happy having a toothbrush which I can actually grasp πŸ™‚

    • Yeah, I once met a guy who proudly told me about his toothbrush-sawing efforts to save weight. The conversation didn’t last much longer. πŸ˜‰

  • Conversations about how lite one’s pack and gear are bores the crap out of me because it just reminds my of one huge pissing contest and I don’t want anything to do with that. I don’t care. Do your own thing and just because you do something one way, does not make everybody else wrong who is doing it a different way.

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