Backpacking: The Ultimate Budget Travel Experience?

This heavily hyped up, typical gap year student experience has entered the subconscious of every proactive youth as a wonderful, near compulsory, rite of passage to be made by those with ambition and shoulders wide enough to carry their personal belongings in a backpack for the duration of several months. From a logical (perhaps slightly parental) perspective, the whole ordeal seems horrific. Never being 100% sure of where your next shower, meal or affordable laundry service is coming from; losing precious sleep over the resident snorer in the hostel dormitory or due to the intense back pain which has now penetrated the entirety of your spine; being without home, regular communication facilities and letting personal hygiene levels sink to new lows, what is the inevitable allure of the backpacking experience?

To many a gap year student, pre or post degree, backpacking has become the ultimate statement of youthful ambition offering independence, a chance to see the world and a way of proving a certain level of self-sufficiency and strength, all for a price manageable for barmen and barmaids everywhere. Backpacking is the current cultural trend as a way of growing up and opening perspectives, and an effective one at that.

With fantastic transport facilities on offer at budget prices through services such as Inter-Railing, and with thousands of students making the same European pilgrimage every year, backpacking has never been easier, or more sociable. Youth hostels worldwide are crammed with backpackers, brimming with stories of their exotic destinations, their cultural discoveries and their future plans for further travel. The stereotype of the irritating, over-talkative gap year student is rather unfair on most. Usually they have a lot of very interesting things to say.

Those who take gap years before university are often better prepared for the sudden independence university brings, and it is an unavoidable cliché that backpacking is indeed ‘character building’. It undoubtedly involves a respectable amount of initiative, organisation and cultural curiosity and tends to inspire self-confidence and improved people skills in those who have participated, due to the natural sociability of the situation – meeting fellow travellers on trains and in hostels, making new friends every week...

The whole process of booking and telling others about your travels has also been furthered by the development of the Internet. Sites like HostelBookers.com have made it easy to book hostels before you travel, and they have plenty of customer reviews so that you can get a legitimate opinion before you book. Also, take a look at Cheap Flights.co.uk if you’re looking to get some cheap flights – this is a price comparison website that gives prices from a range of providers in an instant. Once you’re travelling, then setting up a travel blog to let your friends know of your adventures is a popular option. Take a look at Real Travel for this, or you could just keep people updated by posting photos on Facebook.