and is this just another example of video killed the radio star?Let me explain this rather odd introduction. I am now pushing towards the end of my third big backpacking adventure. My first was as a solo traveller in my early 20s and focussed almost exclusively on Australia and New Zealand (with the addition of a short diversionary trip to Fiji and a small chunk of time in the states). My second was with my then girlfriend (now wife) in our mid 20s and took us across the length and breadth of South East Asia, all over Europe and another stint in the US. And finally this trip, which started in our late 20s and has continued to us both entering our 30s. Thus far it has seen us pretty much totally cover the American mainland continent right the way from Canada all the way down to Argentina (missing out on 5 mainland countries along the way). We’ve also been to Cuba and travelled down to Antarctica. In addition we went back to Europe and explored a wide selection of the bits we had missed the first time. Now we are in Asia exploring the Eastern region and we will soon return to the south east. Over the course of these three trips a huge amount seems to have changed in the world of the backpacker. Some of it for the better, and some of it undeniably for the worse!! I’ll elaborate. When I set off on my first adventure in January 2010 and I was a bug-eyed, fresh-faced and energetic 22 year old, I had very little idea about what exactly I wanted to see or do but had a whole lot of enthusiasm to see and do it all! Within days of arriving in a hostel in Sydney I had met a huge variety of backpackers, some old, some young, some experienced, some green, some at the start of their adventures and some at the end. I quickly made friends and as a group we shared ideas, stories and plans about travels before heading off on our separate ways or in my case with newly acquired travel friends. This was a situation that occurred on multiple occasions throughout my first backpacking trip. Meeting new people, in hostels, at tourist destinations, in bus stations, on trains, in queues...anywhere! We would engage, establish our instant commonality as fellow travellers and begin to build a bond. Sometimes this would last a few minutes. Sometimes a day or a night. Sometimes a few days/weeks. And in some rarer cases these would turn into lifelong friendships. This was the beauty of travelling. Wherever you were in the world and however familiar or alien it felt to you, when you met a fellow traveller you had something in common. Even if in the ‘real’ world your lives couldn’t be more different, at this moment, in this place you were both travellers and that connection trumped all other things. What was so wonderful about travelling at this time was the unfailing attitude of almost everyone to help each other out. If you saw a fellow traveller and they looked lost or confused or stressed out you helped them...gave them directions, instructions, change, a cigarette and if none of these things were what they needed the very least you would always offer was moral support! That’s how backpacking worked. At this time there wasn’t the abundance of good quality free WiFi we have available now and not all travellers had smartphones (in fact it was pretty uncommon). This meant that finding your way around often had to be done the ‘old fashioned way’, by asking people, reading signs and following maps. If you had managed to decipher something or had somehow acquired useful knowledge or information it was almost your duty to share it with other travellers who may be able to utilise it! Now, when I say ‘share’ I don’t mean it in terms of the Gen Z/Facebook definition. No quick tweets or Facebook updates were in anyway functional or useful at this point. By sharing, I mean interacting with other living humans in your immediate vicinity and verbally relaying information. And this was something we did regularly! In all different places, all of the time. You could arrive in a hostel on your own and be out having drinks with a whole group of new travel mates within hours. Being a backpacker was like being part of the world’s most inclusive members only club! Now, skip forward two years, add another person and relocate to South East Asia! We are now in 2013, solo traveller has now become pair of travellers and we are 25/26 years old. On this trip, I noticed a slight shift, but not a major one and not one that I necessarily viewed as negative. Our time in the region took us from the heavily touristed parts of the ‘Banana Pancake Trail’ in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, as well as the more remote areas of those countries and places like Myanmar, Malaysia, Borneo and Singapore which aren’t (weren’t) really on the trail at all. During this trip it was obvious that the traveller’s desire for and expectation of easily accessible ‘connection’ had increased. Far more hostels, guest houses and cafes proudly and brazenly advertised their status as ‘Free WiFi hotspots’ and those were the places where travellers would generally gravitate. “No WiFi, no customer!” I remember hearing one guesthouse proprietor in Thailand exclaim. Whilst I thought this was a shame I understood the shift. In the two years since I had travelled previously, the average persons online presence had increased exponentially and smartphones had become almost common place among the majority of mobile phone users. Both of these factors were and still are particularly true of travellers. Given the fact that most people who are travelling are doing so as part of some great adventure (be that long or short term) it stands to reason that given the opportunity you would want to be able to share your experiences with those you know and love, and social media has provided the easiest and most efficient way in which to do that! In terms of smart phones, these can undeniably be a travellers best friend as they can function as a computer, camera, GPS, iPod and of course a phone (although for many travellers that becomes a largely redundant feature) all in one and they fit in your pocket! Pretty handy when you’re living out of a backpack! What had remained unchanged for the most part was this universal backpacker’s club that I mentioned earlier. Everyone was still willing to help each other out (although the services you offered could now include “a quick Google”), friendships were still formed and solidified with unbelievable pace and regularity (on this trip we went on a one month trip around Borneo with a couple we met in a guesthouse and had known for 5 days prior to embarking) and there was absolutely no denying the subconscious attitude of “we’re all in this together”! I can’t deny it was noticeable that when a place had decent WiFi it became an instantly desirable location for many and would become a destination at which little communication between closely proximate individuals would occur. However, this disengagement with reality was always brief as once the tweet was tweeted and the update posted, getting back to making the most of the experience you were living was of utmost importance! At this stage technology was certainly present but not yet omnipresent in a travellers life. I will now bring you right forward to present day...actually, that’s not strictly true, I will bring you up to the commencement of my current trip in August 2016 and through to present day. This trip has seen both me and my wife bid farewell to our 20s and bound head first into our 30s whilst living out as many of our travel dreams as we can possibly fit in before we temporarily settle down and play at being ‘responsible adults’ for a short time! At this stage we have been on the road for nearly 20 months and the vast majority of that time was spent on the American continent (with some more Europe thrown in for good measure and the start of our final bit of Asian exploration recently begun). Before I begin my description of my opinion of this trip when compared to the others, I feel I should take ownership of a few things that have changed for me personally since the 2013/14 trip. Firstly, I’m now 30 which means that on average I am anything from 5 to 12 years older than most other backpackers on the road. Being older does not buy you ‘cool points’ as a backpacker, I can guarantee you that! (I am pained to admit that when I first started backpacking I used to look at people of my current age and quietly wonder what these weird old people were doing travelling and why they weren’t at home with mortgages and children!) Secondly, I’m married. While being married does not in anyway mean that I don’t want to socialise with anyone else or make new friends, it does mean that sometimes at the end of a long day of exploring/travelling I would sometimes prefer a quiet early night in with my other half, over an massive and extended ‘getting to know you’ session in a hostel common space! Finally, I am a little more reserved than I used to be. This isn’t as a direct result of anything in particular but just something that I believe is a consequence of age and life experience.
All of these factors combined mean that I am certainly not the same type of backpacker (or indeed person) that I was in 2010 and I am aware of that. However, with the changes undergone in me duly accounted for, I am stunned and disappointed by the changes in the fundamental make up of the average backpacker and of the club in which they travel! Remember what I said at the start about connecting and making friends, we’re all in this together, my knowledge is your knowledge...?! As far as I can see that has all but disappeared. Suddenly there is an overriding sense of every man for himself! People are obviously still travelling in groups but these are almost exclusively already constructed groups of friends rather than the previously very common organically created collectives of travellers. When I see other travellers in the more obscure destinations or on the road midway between two distant points my instant reflex is to smile at them. This is usually done with one of three meanings “Do you need help?”, “Can you help me?”, “Hi, I’m a traveller too and if you wanna chat we can.” In days gone by this smile was almost always reciprocated and would sometimes result in a response to one of the ‘between the lines, smile statements’. These days about one in every five of these smiles is reciprocated and even if it is, any further communication is almost unheard of! The non-exclusive members club appears to have disappeared and I blame technology for this! Gone are the days of need help/want advice = ask a person/fellow traveller! It is now, need help = ask Google, want advice = read a blog. On more than one occasion on this trip I have actually offered assistance to other backpackers who were obviously in need and had this offer actively rejected in place of Google! Back in the ‘real’ world it used to upset me greatly when I would see groups of teenagers ‘hanging out’ together in Starbucks or in parks and completely ignoring each other. Instead of actually communicating they would all sit around together in a circle playing on their phones, occasionally and very briefly breaking the code of silence to share an amusing meme or to take a Snapchat selfie with another member of the group. I would often scoff at the fact that this is what socialisation had become in the next generation but assumed it was likely to be just a middle class, city kids thing! Oh how wrong I was! The exact same trend is true of the younger generation of backpackers. There seems to be a whole collective of backpackers who are now more interested in instagramming their trip than actually being on it! Technology, and more to the point the ease with which everyone can access it seems to have resulted in a preference for a life lived in he virtual world rather than the real one! I’m astounded by the ever decreasing length of time for which your average traveller is comfortable with being ‘disconnected’. I’ve honestly been on hour long walking tours where fellow participants have photographed something and then completely ignored the guide and following 3-4 minutes of the tour while they post the picture immediately on some form of social media! Travel now appears to have become an individualist game of oneupmanship. Instead of visiting a place to see and experience and learn about a culture or pursue a passion or dream or adventure it seems to now be used as a means to just take a better selfie in a more unique location than the other people who follow you on Instagram! The experience is had so it can be posted about rather than lived. This has been a stark and harsh realisation I have had on this trip and I feel nothing but genuine sadness for the new generation of travellers who I believe to be really missing out on the freedom to really indulge in an experience that we had less than a decade ago! I know there are exceptions to this trend as I have met them! These days they are easy enough to spot as they are the ones who are not on their phones in social situations and the ones who make eye contact and are willing (able) to partake in spontaneous conversation. It may just be my ever advancing age, fear/loathing of technology or simply that I am being unfairly judgemental. I will accept all of these as being potential reasons why I have noticed and feel so strongly about this shift. But, to quote Carrie Bradshaw “I couldn’t help but wonder...” has technology changed the world of the backpacker forever and have younger backpackers lost the ability to truly experience the world and their opportunity to through it?
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