Backpacking: the ultimate guide to first time around the world travel

By Michael Huxley

Bemused Backpacker’s guide to backpacking is an indispensable guide to first time, independent round the world travel.

Full of advice from an experienced backpacker on how to plan your very first trip, this book contains all the information you need to get started and travel the world independently, cheaply and easily.

With essential advice on budgeting and how to travel cheaply, with handy tips on getting great deal, spotting scams and not getting ripped off.

Discover how to get your tickets, sort out visas and passports, where to go, where to stay and how to get around once you are on the road.

Helpful hints and tips on how to keep yourself safe.

Includes a comprehensive section on safety and travel health advice from a qualified staff nurse, including which vaccinations you need to get before you go.

If you are planning to backpack around the world on a gap year or just to a specific destination for a month or two, then you need this invaluable book. Learn all the things you need to know before and during your travels, and get inspired to get that plane ticket and discover the wonders of backpacking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Huxley
• Release date: May 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301782079

Michael Huxley

Michael Huxley is a former charge nurse and is now a published author, professional adventurer and founder of the successful travel website Bemused Backpacker. He has been featured in some of the worlds largest print and TV media including the BBC, The Guardian and The New York Times among others, and now travels the world full time.

Book preview

BACKPACKING

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO FIRST TIME AROUND THE WORLD TRAVEL

Bemused Backpacker Guides

Michael Huxley, BA, BSc, RNA

Copyright 2013 by Michael Huxley

Smashwords Edition

Disclaimer.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the information and advice contained within this edition is correct, accurate and up to date. However, some things are bound to change and contact details and prices are particularly subject to fluctuations. It is the responsibility of the individual to ensure that they back up the advice and knowledge that is contained within this book with their own research.

No incentives or enticements were taken or offered from the businesses or associations mentioned in this book. Any businesses mentioned are there solely for the information of the reader and are there to help you start your own research.

The advice contained within the health section is written by a qualified and registered staff nurse and every effort has been made to ensure that the information is up to date and accurate at the time of print. However, this is meant for general advice and information purposes only and cannot be used as a replacement for individual advice from physicians or specialist nurses who will have access to personal medical histories and will be able to advise you based on your own specific needs. Further research into current outbreaks or conditions in the countries you want to visit is strongly recommended.

How to use this book.

This book is not a destination guide. It is not here to give you a detailed lowdown on every country or continent you may want to visit. It is here to help you actually plan your first backpacking trip and answer all the questions and logistical problems that most first time backpackers will have.

This is a book to read before you go, during the planning stages of your new adventure. You will still need to research the destinations you want to go to individually, but will hopefully be a little bit more confident and prepared for the problems you may encounter, understand what you need to know before you set off, and will benefit from the experience and advice from a seasoned backpacker.

Part 1 is there to ensure that all your preparation and planning is as good as it can be when you are thinking about setting off on your round the world trip. The logistical labyrinth of passports, visas, how to arrange flights and organise your budget are all dealt with in this section amongst everything else you will need to know before you go. Part 2 is there to give you advice, tips and reassurance on organising everything once you are on the ground, from accommodation and transport to getting work or volunteering. Part 3 is all about travel safety and travel health, and includes a handy directory of the common traveller ailments and diseases, and what to do if you get them, as well as giving you the knowledge of the different vaccinations you will need when travelling. The final section is all about what you do when you get home, how you deal with the inevitable and perpetual itchy feet, and what you do next after you get back home.

This eBook has been specifically edited and formatted for various e reader devices, and although the content remains exactly the same, as such the layout and design will be considerably different to the print version.

The top tip sections, highlighted in green on some e readers, are there to give you condensed highlights of the advice contained within the book, or useful lists and advice in a quick, easy to read format.

The useful contacts sections, highlighted in blue on some e readers, are there to give you the websites or details of organisations or companies that will be useful either in planning or executing your trip, or simply for further reading or research.

Contents.

Introduction.

What is backpacking?

Who can go backpacking?

Part 1. Before you travel.

Getting started.

Passports, visa’s, travel insurance and money.

Budgeting.

Where to go.

When to go.

How to go.

Who to go with.

Should you travel alone or with someone?

Choosing your travel partner.

Should you use a travel adventure company?

Essential kit.

Choosing your backpack.

How to pack and what to take.

Specialist clothing and equipment.

Should you take travel technology?

Packing hints and tips.

Example packing lists.

Part 2. On the ground.

Air, land and sea. How to travel when you arrive.

Where to stay when you get there.

Backpacking or flashpacking?

How to book and organise your accommodation.

Types of accommodation.

Where to eat.

Fine dining or roadside eats?

Backpacking for vegetarians.

Working your way around the world.

What jobs can you do?

Volunteering.

Voluntourism and egotourism.

How long to volunteer for.

What type of volunteering is right for me?

What to expect when volunteering.

Documenting your travels.

Part 3. Staying safe, staying in touch and staying healthy.

Staying in touch on the road.

Basic safety and security tips.

Common scams.

Solo female backpacker.

Dealing with problems on the road.

Travel health.

Before you go.

First aid kit essentials.

What vaccinations do I need for travelling?

Routine traveller illnesses and complaints.

Infectious diseases.

Travelling with pre existing conditions.

Part 4. Returning home.

Reverse culture shock.

How to explain the snap or gap year on your CV.

Going away again.

About the author.

Enjoy the scenery and go for a swim at the seven tiered waterfall in Erawan national park, Thailand, (above). Or marvel at the serene beauty of Lake Nasser in Egypt, (below).

Explore vast desert wildernesses and get back to nature in Sinai (above), or take a mountaineering course and see the world from a deity’s perspective at sunrise (below).

Discover untouched tropical jungles in Malaysia and reward yourself with a swim in a crystal clear, refreshing lagoon.

Introduction.

If you have picked up this book then I’m willing to bet that you are dreaming about setting off on your very own backpacking trip. I’ll bet you are just wishing you could quit the rat race and just get on a plane without a care in the world, or you have a gap in your life that you want to fill with unlimited adventure and the life changing experiences that travelling the world has to offer.

It doesn’t really matter how you want to do it or even how long you want to go for. You may want to have a round the world trip on an entire gap year after you have finished uni, or maybe take a career break for a month or two and explore a specific region or country that has always fascinated you. The specifics don’t really matter. You know that you want to travel and see the world and your heart is telling you that it the right thing to do, but your head may be filling you with doubt and is reminding you of all those annoying little practicalities that get in the way of a really good spontaneous idea. Well don’t worry, your heart will win out with just a little help. All those practicalities are not as daunting as they first seem, because here’s the big secret that everyone instinctively knows but won’t let themselves believe, it actually isn’t that difficult. In fact, going on your very first backpacking trip is a lot easier than people realise!

I also know that as exciting and exhilarating as planning your round the world adventures are, it can also be a little daunting. It isn’t easy your first time out. You will have dozens of questions on everything, from where and when to go to how to travel and what to pack. The good news is you can take some comfort in the fact that you are not alone. Almost every first time backpacker has exactly the same worries and asks almost exactly the same questions. Look on any of the popular travel forums or chat to any first time traveller and the same questions and the same topics of conversation crop up time and time again.

Of course there are always the practicalities to consider. How do you organise time off work? Where should you go? How should you get there? Should you pay a travel agent to sort out every last detail for you or take the plunge and sort everything out yourself? What should you pack? Is it safe? There are a million and one questions and almost as many logistical obstacles to negotiate when you travel. Almost every first time backpacker and traveller has the very same questions and doubts before they start on their trip.

That is exactly what this book is here for, to help you answer all those first time questions and solve all the little logistical problems you may face by giving you firsthand knowledge and advice based on experience, as well as a few useful contacts, ideas and inspiration for your own individual trip. This isn’t a traditional guidebook which will tell you about the where’s why’s and how’s of a particular destination, there are already a whole raft of destination guidebooks that can do that for you. This is a book that is intended to prepare you on your journey to becoming an independent backpacker. It doesn’t matter whether you are a student or graduate about to embark on a round the world trip or a professional taking a career break to go travelling, whether you are travelling alone or with a friend or partner or even a family, this book is for all of you who want to go backpacking for the first time, and hopefully most people, including seasoned travellers, will be able to get some useful information on planning their trips and hints on travelling along the way.

But this book is also about much more than simply answering a few basic questions, it is about inspiring you too. It doesn’t matter what route you take on your journey, what countries you visit or how long you go for, as long as you take that step.

I hope that somewhere in this book you will not only find the answers you need to make your first backpacking trip a little smoother, but also the inspiration you might need to go and get that plane ticket and pack your bags! In this book I want to give you a small glimpse into the life of a backpacker, to give you an idea of what it takes to take your dream and make it a reality, to plan your trip, avoid some of the common scams, mistakes and pitfalls most backpackers have fallen victim to at some point in their travels and get you ready for your first adventure. As a very wise man once said, life is an adventure, and it is one worth living boldly.

Backpacking can be one of the richest and most fulfilling experiences of your life, but only if you let it be. For many people there is still the big psychological wall of doubt and insecurity to climb over. There is a lot of societal pressure on people to settle down, get a house, a mortgage, have kids and do the responsible thing. Taking a career break, a gap year or even an extended holiday can - for many - seem like the complete antithesis of that. It can take a lot of courage for some people to make that decision to buck the trend and go travelling, but if you do, you will never regret it.

This is because the world is a large and wonderful place, filled with an infinite variety of people, languages and cultures. Vast mountain ranges, tropical islands surrounded by clear azure waters, mysterious jungles and deserts that will yield the most vivid sunsets you have ever seen. There are ancient ruins and modern marvels, manmade and natural wonders to discover and explore and wildlife to marvel at, all of which are simply waiting to be rediscovered on your own individual adventure. But you will never see any of it if you do not make that decision to travel. It will pass you by if you stay in your comfort zone and conform to the same lifestyle your parents and friends probably did. You will grow old without experiencing some of the best experiences the world has to offer you if the only plane you ever get on takes you to the air conditioned, pre booked complex that your package tour holiday rep organised for you. But it is you that has to make that decision. Only you can decide to break away from the shackles of a package holiday and embrace the freedom and adventure of backpacking.

Backpacking is much, much more than a holiday, it is a life experience. The journey itself is as important as the places you visit and the things you see and do along the way.

Backpacking in one respect is very easy, but in many others it can be quite difficult and daunting, especially for those who have never done it before. Backpacking will be one of the best experiences of your life, and you can see some of the world’s most amazing sights, stay in some of the most luxurious places or have experiences you may never have even dreamed of, but it will also force you outside of your comfort zone. You will get a little bit of culture shock the first time you encounter a squat toilet or see what life is like outside of a holiday complex, the world is a very different place from the preconceived ideologies people who have never travelled have and the judgemental stereotypes of the mass media and you will not always have the home comforts of an en suite hotel room. Many backpackers have to travel on a budget, spending a night or two in an airport, sleep in cheap accommodation with few frills, deciding which route to take or which island to visit on the toss of a coin and making more than a few mistakes along the way with no one to hold your hand. The only thing you can rely on is yourself and your wits. There are some amazing experiences to be had, but there are a few road bumps along the way too, so you first of all you really have to ask yourself is it for you? If it is, and if you do decide that backpacking is what you want to do, then I can’t begin to tell you the rewards that backpacking and living a life on the road will offer you along the way.

So if by now you are eager to get on that plane and explore some far flung, exotic locale, you will need to know the practicalities and pitfalls that you will face along the way, but don’t worry, with a little planning this book can help you overcome them. I know that it seems a little strange to need to plan ahead. Half of the point of independent travel is exactly that, to be independent, to take things as they come and travel the world free of constraints and plans. The freedom to do anything you want and go anywhere you want is one of the great lures of backpacking. This is still absolutely true, too much planning can kill a great trip, it can stop you from staying longer in a country or island you have fallen in love with or leaving a town or city you aren’t enamoured with sooner than you planned. It can stop you from discovering a new fantastic place you never even knew existed and prevent you from staying there for a while because you have to move on to catch your flight or get to a hotel in another town to make that reservation you made. Planning can even stop you from enjoying and experiencing the happy accidents of independent travel and be much more stressful as a result. So when you set off on your backpacking adventure by all means take the road less travelled, blaze the trail not travelled and choose the most arduous route just because you can. But as contradictory as it seems, this freedom does take just a little bit of forethought. By allowing this book to help you with that, you will have some of the best and most fulfilling experiences of your life when you go backpacking and you will arrive back home a changed, but ultimately better person and just itching to get back out there again!

What is backpacking?

Backpacking is a very loose term, usually used to describe independent world travel on a budget. By definition this sets backpacking apart from the usual package tour holiday where you get bussed to a bland resort, sit by the all inclusive pool for a week and then get bussed back to the airport like well herded sheep, but over the years travelling the world independently has evolved and come to mean different things for different people.

The traditional notion of backpacking is of course still there. The student or graduate off on a gap year is a time honoured tradition, and is still a staple plan for many backpackers. This extended year long trip is often associated with round the world jaunts, with first time explorers or seasoned travellers alike taking a year out and visiting many countries across many, if not all, continents. Whilst this is certainly the case for many backpackers, the gap year round the world trip is no longer set in stone. Now the gap year is being matched in popularity with the snap year. Many backpackers are now travelling for shorter periods or concentrating on one country or region rather than trying to do everything at once, breaking up round the world trips into blocks of anywhere between one to six months before they head back to work and normality again and start looking forward to and preparing for their next trip.

So while backpacking does often refer to those travelling the world on a gap year, it can equally refer to those exploring a single country such as Thailand or Vietnam for a month or taking six months out to explore a whole region such as Central America. So it is not the time spent travelling that defines a backpacker, but the way that they travel.

Quite simply backpacking is travelling independently, eschewing the normal pre packaged, air conditioned comforts of traditional holidays. Backpacking is setting off with only a vague itinerary and travelling by your wits alone in an attempt to experience countries, cultures sights and activities that can make up part of your own unique and fantastic adventure.

The reasons people go backpacking are as varied and unique as the many travellers you will meet along the way. For some backpacking is just a type of extended holiday, an independent preference over the traditional method of pre packaged organised tours. For others it is a much needed period of rest to combat the stress and burn out of modern day life. For others backpacking is a way to cure those itchy feet, to satiate the pervasive restlessness to visit places they have never seen and quench that vague and elusive need for adventure. Others still have used the time spent travelling for a more practical reason, with volunteering or internships making up significant parts of their trip so that when they get back their CV will look more impressive in a difficult jobs market in order to get a boost in their career or even change it entirely.

Basically backpacking is a very loose term, and it doesn’t always mean those who simply travel with a backpack (although the absolute majority of us do). There are those backpackers who travel the world, moving from country to country on a budget and travelling as lightly and without any clear path or route as possible, and then there are those flashpackers who travel in style and comfort, often have more gear and gadgets, carry the latest tech and stick to a slightly more rigid itinerary. Finally there are many more still who travel in a fluid mixture of these two extremes. So backpacking is essentially whatever it means to you as an individual as long as it is independent. As soon as you get off the plane and strap your pack to your back, you will be setting off on an amazing, often life changing adventure that will be completely unique to you. Even if you are heading through the well established banana pancake trail trodden by many backpackers before you, your experiences, your adventures and the things you see and do along the way will all be new to you, and will change you for the better. That is what backpacking is.

Who can go backpacking?

The simple answer to this is anyone and everyone!

Traditionally the stereotypical idea of a backpacker has been a teenager or someone in their early twenties. More often than not this stereotype is also a student on a gap year before or after their time in university. This isn’t wholly unfounded, there are still many backpackers who fit into this category and a lot of the backpackers I meet on the road still broadly fit this group.

In general the younger student demographic is very time rich, and in many ways a lot of people do see this time as the ideal period in which to take time out and travel around the world. They usually aren’t constrained by the chains of a mortgage, bills, property, family and all the other things that come with being forced to grow up and settle down, and have the freedom to take a gap or snap year.

But there has been a growing trend over the past decade or so where the backpacker demographic has changed drastically.

Age isn’t the primary measure of a backpacker any more, if it ever has been. The travel industry is only now beginning to cotton on to the extremely lucrative backpacker market and are trying to appeal to a mass market demographic, with companies such as Bridge the World specifically marketing fares, trips and flights that was preciously marketed at a student population to an older market.

Over the last decade or so there has been a huge rise in adults of all ages setting off around the world on independent backpacking trips. Many of these are the very same student gap yearers and backpackers who have simply aged, but have taken time out later in life and continued to travel throughout their twenties and thirties and even forties, unable to shake the travel bug that bit them during their gap year many years earlier at university or before they started their career.

It isn’t just former student backpackers though, many more people of all ages are beginning to join them too, and not all of them have travelled before. Now instead of first time backpackers all being in their late teens or early twenties, it is just as common to see those in their late twenties or early thirties or even older setting out on the traditional banana pancake trail for the first time. Some of these older backpackers are professionals who have decided to take a break from a stressful and demanding career, or who have suffered a job loss or forced sabbatical.

Unfortunately the world economy can be blamed for part of this. At the very least it is a major contributing factor in the rise of the flashpacker and professional traveller. It’s no big secret that the economy around the world is being flushed down the toilet at breakneck speed at the moment, and many people who have lost their jobs or careers in the recession have decided to use their life savings and take some time out to pursue their dreams of travel before looking for work again. Even those who still have careers are increasingly taking sabbaticals or career breaks, often encouraged by many smaller businesses and companies who are unwilling to lose good, skilled professionals but cannot afford to pay a large workforce until the economy improves. Many more professionals are escaping from the rat race for a while in an attempt to fend off stress or burn out, or simply just enjoy life a little more as people begin to realise the importance of a work and life balance.

It is this fundamental paradigm shift that I think is having much more of a profound effect on people, and explains the dramatic sea change in backpacker demographics much more than anything else.

Of course we are still being force fed the same old rhetoric, that we must settle down, be responsible, pay our taxes! We should feel lucky to have a job at all in this economy, right? So you should neglect everything else in your life including your family and your health and work, work, work! There is always more do be done and you are the only one who can do it, damnit!

Screw that.

Whatever your work or professional situation is, work - life balance matters, a lot, and more and more people are realising that as they re examine their priorities.

Given the stresses and strains on modern professionals of all disciplines and specialties, the cuts in pay and conditions, the devaluing of professional qualifications and education, the constant attacks on pensions and the demands to work for decades longer than our predecessors before we can retire to