opinion

The art of wanderlust

Ever heard of a tour for backpackers? It’s a contradiction that illustrates the close-minded nature of something that reaches cult status, but the ethos of backpacking will make us better persons, writes Victor Paul Borg.

In a postcard from India, my friend Ingrid Gibson wrote, ‘I was finally able to put my finger on what made me want to come back to this part of the world. It just kills me! I just laugh and laugh, it's the most ridiculous place in the world. Everything is possible here, you just walk around incredulous of what's going on around you, the laws of common sense constantly being challenged – this adventurer life ain’t bad at all.’ Ingrid and her boyfriend, Francis Petre-Turville, lived in London before they set themselves adrift in India. They had well-paid jobs but Ingrid got bored and resigned and Francis was made redundant. The timing proved perfect: instead of scrambling for another nine-to-five job, they picked up their redundancy payment and booked the next flight to India. While their money lasts, they will find enough freelance work online to generate enough money to live on the road indefinitely. Next stop, Bhutan – the furthest you can get away from Western society these days.

Thanks to travel guidebooks like Lonely Planet and the Rough Guides, and Alex Garland’s cult novel The Beach, backpacking has become a way of life for Generation X. Drifting on bare necessities has attained cult status, complete with its distinct garb (dreadlocks, body piercing, trekking boots), attitude (as little clothes as possible, living on a beach, free sex, drugs such as LCD and marijuana), and religion (a DIY Buddhism for karma, plus overarching nihilism). The idea is to experience the world and live life at its full tilt, but to do so you have to banish attachments, denounce material things, and for money, you either do odd jobs to finance your travels or else go freelance. There is no space for a full-time job or a career because that kidnaps your mind. You get the most from your money in the Third World, the Far East and Indian continent particularly, South America less popularly because it’s more expensive.

The ethos of backpacking is informed by living for the moment. You’re like a professional vagrant, drifting but also following possibilities as they arise and veering off on whims. You have no future to worry about, no past to understand, simply the present to experience, and when you get up in the morning, your first question is, ‘What should I do today?’ In this life, you start to live with an acknowledgement that everything is transient – friends and lovers are transient, your home is transient, and your life, ultimately, is also a transition; and when you internalise this concept you relax your grip of controlling one’s life and the people around you. You learn the art of hanging out, with only a fuzzy agenda or an itinerary. You can hang out forever – until your health permits it, that is.

Most of my friends are this type of travellers. They include some of the most interesting people I know. Francis wrote from Goa, ‘I have been spending long days sitting in the shade of a palm tree reading and thinking. In London I used to be too distracted, here it’s easy to concentrate and focus on your mental tasks when the days stretch before you uncluttered and uninterrupted.’

But although backpacking is the most culturally and environmentally sensitive way of travel, it is only possible for as long as there is Third World. We have the luxury of earning enough money in a month that an average worker would earn in six months in India. Which means we are piggybacking on the West’s exploitation of the Third World. Our world on the road is a closed world for the locals that host us. Because they are culturally and religiously different, it’s hard to make local friends, so we carve up our little, insular havens on their soil and in their lust for a share of our pie, they become servants, foolish puppeteers in their servility. Although this situation can be seen as reinforcing the divide, I take the view that our presence and our examples can only help liberate the locals from their social and religious shackles and make them eager to be part of our world so they can share our wealth. This is, after all, the main reason why I outgrew the community I came from. Befriending British expatriates in Gozo in my mid-teenage years empowered me to break my ranks and form an ambitious view in life way beyond my community’s opportunities. Ultimately, for a level world where everyone has the same opportunities, all borders and barriers – trade and political – have to be dismantled.

The other part of the nightmare of backpacking is its cult status. Goa, in India, started as a tropical haven for the hippie generation but its popularity has ruined its culture and environment. Too many westerners turned up, and the infrastructure had to be put in place to cater for them. Hotels have intruded on the beaches and the rainforest, the locals have been reduced to beggars and swindlers, and while there is freely running tap water and air-conditioning in the hotels and Westerners’ huts on the beaches, the natural water supply has been depleted irreversibly and there isn’t enough water for the local peasants. The same is happening elsewhere – in Thailand, Mexico, Cuba, the Australian outback and many other places.

Backpacking has become such a rite of passage for people in their twenties that the travel industry has made it a commodity. Many tour operators now offer tours for backpackers – whose only difference from other tours is that the members of the tour like to intoxicate profusely, have more sex, and lodge in hostels instead of hotels. A tour for backpackers? It’s a contradiction – backpacking is supposed to be inherently independent. You’re supposed to use public transport, eat and sleep like the locals, and forge your itinerary as you go. The problem with something that becomes a cult is that it attracts the fakes, the ones who dress and walk the part for two weeks a year in suspended reality. Don’t follow the masses please: make backpacking a way of life not simply a rite of passage.

My new flatmate might be coming round to this. After spending a year in Thailand, she returned to the UK to start a course but now, barely five months on the course, she misses the backpacking life. Last week she threw up her hands in resignation and brushed away her inkling for a career and stability, telling me one morning, ‘To hell with this life, I am going to bugger off again.’

‘Where?’

‘Not sure: maybe America to meet a lover I had in Thailand, or perhaps India or Thailand. But I’ll be out of her by September.’

I can understand why she’s got itchy feet. Most of us procrastinate about travel, about chucking the day job, because it seems daunting and unsure. But once you fly and you land on your feet, it suddenly occurs to you that you can fly forever. I saw this transformation last year in my ex-girlfriend and last week in my Australian cousin. I have also been transformed in this way, and I could be anywhere in six months time.

The greatest lesson of this life is when you understand that while everyone wants to live on the peak, the best life is not to reach the summit in the shortest way, but on taking the most scenic route. And never mind whether you ever make the summit.

Victor Paul Borg is a freelance writer based in London and can be contacted at victor@borg.tf. His column appears here weekly.