Backpacking

Thinking about travelling abroad as a backpacker? Learn about the travelling and backpacking life, and read some good advice now that will save you money and hassle when you’re away…

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Need to know – before leaving home as a backpacker

Backpacking is the ultimate form of travelling! It is the definition of freedom, as the possibilities are endless. Drop the fancy hotels and expensive restaurants, and make your money last for many more wild backpacking adventures…

Book a flight, pack a backpack and a get ready for the experience of your life. This is more or less the recipe for an amazing backpacking trip – the main ingredient is yourself and your ability to communicate, to keep an open mind and to be able to have fun. Like everywhere else, you get a long way with a smile, and it’s important to be positive and open minded as you leave from home.

It is a big decision to take, when considering whether to travel abroad, or stay home, but if you decide to backpack, I will almost guarantee that you will never regret it! To travel as a backpacker simply is like being in a different world, as it’s so far from the life you have back home.

If you’re one of those hard working students who are considering to take a more or less well-earned gap year, I understand! Why not get backpacking experiences of a lifetime, and enjoy that you are young, while continuing to evolve as a human being? Although the politicians want the youth to finish their educations as fast as possible, they know too that a gap year used correctly, can give a person so incredibly much back to the traveller. Studies also show that students who haven’t had a gap year, drop out of their higher education in far more numbers than the gap year travellers.

A similar concept called “flashpacking” has within the past few years become more widespread. As the name indicates, it is not a low budget flashpackers are traveling on, and you often see them with with suitcases instead of the traditional backpack. Many traditional backpackers think it’s not the right way to travel, but nevertheless it becomes more and more popular.

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Planning a backpacker trip abroad

Before you leave home and backpack the world, you need to make clear what you want to achieve or see on your backpacker trip. What are your priorities?

• Want to meet new exciting cultures, on the other side of the world, and constantly being amazed by the many impressions you meet?
• Will you loose yourself and go crazy on a tropical island, where you can leave your worries at home, drink cocktails on the beach and party all night long?
• Do you want to get out into the wild. Experience the fantastic scenery the world has to offer, climb mountains, and be rewarded with spectacular sunsets and life-affirming experiences?
• The backpacking and gap year possibilities are endless…

The first thing you must do is to decide for yourself how long you want to backpack for, and find out how big your budget is for the backpacking trip. These two cases are usually linked together, as the budget often seem to be the biggest obstacle for a backpacker. But something else you have to decide early is where you want to go.  Do you want to backpack in Thailand, Australia or Argentina? If you want to do a world tour, it’s a good approach to make a small list where you write 5 to 10 countries where you would love to backpack. Now you get a overview of the countries, and you can then begin to prioritize where you’d want to backpack, by putting numbers next to the countries. This is painless, and your dreams and fantasy can go wild, but now the comes, where you have to sort the countries, based on what your backpacker budget is. For instance, it’s not realistic to pack your backpack for a classic trip around the world in three months to Thailand – New Zealand – Australia – United States for £ 4500, while it makes a lot more sense if your route is Thailand – Vietnam – Indonesia – Mexico!

The backpacker lesson is: “Adjust your route, destinations and durations to your backpacker budget”

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Finance and budget for backpackers

You will for ever be grateful that you clicked onto GapYearTravelling.com, cuz it’s now that you found out that a trip around the world is not at all unrealistic! Many people who haven’t backpacked, often think that a ticket round the world cost many thousand pounds. But the truth is that if you want to go as far away as for example New Zealand or Australia, which might cost you £ 600-800 in low season, then you’re probably able to explore the neighbouring country  for only £ 100 more. £ 50 more and you can add Thailand to your backpacker route, and £ 50 more and you’re on your way to backpack North America!

In other words, it is actually possible to book an exciting round the world ticket for under £ 1,000! Therefore, it is indeed a great idea to explore both New Zealand and Australia, if you decide to go to one of the countries.  Of course only if you got enough time.

I guess we can agree that the cost of the airline tickets around the world shouldn’t prevent this dream from any – but it does. Many backpackers I’ve met, didn’t know that it was possible to explore more than one country a single trip..

The money spend on tickets is not a big expence compared to the money you’ll spend when you are living in the different countries. Especially if you’re going to Australia, New Zealand, North America or Western Europe you’ll spend a lot on accommodation, food, transportation and just having fun. Therefore, one should avoid using relatively long time in the expensive countries, if you’re on a tight budget or if you want to be away from home for as long as possible. Generally, most say that most of Asia, Africa and South America is cheap, while North America, Oceania and Europe (excl Eastern Europe) are expensive.

So it is the time in the expensive countries that will be tough on your backpacker budget, and it’s certainly handy to have these thoughts in mind, when planning your route as a backpacker. If you are on a very tight budget, you might try to ignore backpacking the expensive countries like: USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, UK, Scandinavia and so on. Some of the countries you should focus on backpacking instead, could for example be Thailand, Malaysia, Kenya, Indonesia, Peru, Venezuela, etc.

You should also make you clear how you’re willing to live. – As a backpacker you have a limited budget, and you want to try and get the money to reach as long time as possible and give you the maximum backpacker experiences and pleasure. Some backpackers are able to live on a few pounds per day, and stretch their backpacker trips for much longer than those who say yes to all the activities they’re offered, often eating out and party a lot on the expensive way.

One way to find out how long you have to travel is by dividing your total budget with an estimated daily budget. Let ‘s for example say that you want to backpack Australia, New Zealand and the United States, where it’s approximately equal expensive to live. We set a daily budget of  £ 45, since we expect that it will be enough to cover the hostel, food, activities and transportation in the different countries. You have saved up £ 6,500, found the right backpack, your tickets cost £ 1.200, and now you got £ 5,000 left. You now need to divide the £ 5,000 to the £ 45, which will afford you to travel around the countries for approx. 111 days. Note, however, as described before, there is great variation in how much money you spend, and many backpackers will without a doubt spend the money on for example 60 days.