Welcome back to the A-Z of Solo Female Travel! Second edition, in traditional style, is B and today is B is for Backpacking!
What do I mean by backpacking?
I didn’t think I was going to have to start by defining backpacking but judging by a tweet that went flying around last week, some people – in particular, people in North American, apparently – don’t use the same definitions as the rest of us.
Just saw a TikTok that explained that when people said they “backpacked through Europe” they weren’t actually hiking and camping, but that they travelled with only a carry on. still reeling from this info, people who grew up rich pls confirm
— killer queen (@_chismosa_) January 12, 2023
The kind of backpacking I’m talking about is budget travel, carrying all your worldly possessions in a backpack, staying in hostels, making new friends, travelling by night bus, drinking on the beach, getting a tattoo and buying elephant trousers. For the avoidance of doubt, a “hostel” is cheap accommodation for budget travellers, where you mostly sleep in a dormitory in a bunk bed with anywhere between 3 and 30 strangers (I’ve seen someone throw a hissy fit because where they live, a hostel is a shelter for homeless people and how dare travellers treat a hostel like something fun!! We’re talking about a different kind of hostel here). As someone points out in the replies:
In fact rich people look down on backpackers because you stay in dorm rooms and cook your own food and often work your way across the countries.
I’m not a great person for talking about backpacking because I’ve never done it. I did spend five or six days travelling around Denmark once, carrying a backpack, travelling between three cities by train and at a stretch you might call that backpacking but it’s not the kind you’re here to read about. At a push, you might also call my fortnight around Iceland by bus backpacking too, except I was carrying a 90l duffle bag under the weight of which I could only just about stagger from bus to campsite – yes, camping, not hostelling.
The kind you’re here to read about is probably longer-term, anywhere between a month and a year, or even two years or maybe even open-ended, for the entire foreseeable future. You’re probably planning to go somewhere warm, where you can drink on the beach, where accommodation and transport and alcohol are all cheaper. South east Asia is popular – Thailand is the stereotype – but South America seems to be picking up in popularity and although Australia and New Zealand are probably more expensive, people go there too.
Why would I go backpacking?
Well, for a start, it’s a relatively cheap way of spending a relatively long time travelling. If you’re looking to get as much value for money as you can possibly wring out, backpacking is a good option. If you’re going on your own and worried about it, backpacking is also a good option. People who do it make it sound like they’re doing something really different. Going to places people don’t usually go to. Really exploring new places and having new experiences. Then you hear people talk about “the backpacking trail” and you realise that backpacking is every bit as commonplace as all-inclusive package holidays. Everyone goes to the same places, drinks on the same beaches, buys their elephant trousers from the same machines and probably gets the same tattoos from the same tattoo artist.
That sounds like I’m being very disparaging towards backpackers. I’m not. I’m just pointing out that it’s not quite the wild frontier it initially sounds. If you’re nervous about going on your own, take this to mean that you don’t need to be quite so nervous. If your parents are nervous, they don’t need to be either. Backpacking is a well-established scene, especially in south-east Asia. If you’re a first-timer, your hostel will be a home and refuge, it’ll have organised tours on offer to ease you in and you’ll soon make friends with other backpackers. If they’re first-timers too, you’ve got safety in numbers. If they’re more experienced, you’ve got a mentor right there on hand.
Spontaneity
Part of the joy of backpacking is in being spontaneous. You can move where and when you want, depending on what you want to do and you’ve got the freedom to change your mind about that. I would absolutely book somewhere for your first night or two, because there’s nothing worse than arriving in a strange new place with nowhere to go for the night but after that, you can either find somewhere when you turn up or you can book a day or two ahead as you’re figuring out your plans.
I wouldn’t go with a concrete itinerary set in stone. You might discover something amazing and new that you then don’t have time for, or you might make a group of friends and decide to travel together for a while. The weather might scupper your plans. It’s great to allow some flexibility but just make sure you never end up sleeping on a station platform because you didn’t manage to arrange accommodation.
The one place where you might find you can’t be flexible is in being in a certain place at a certain time for your flight home at the end. I think people generally know their flight out and their flight back and being in position for that flight back will shape the rest of your trip. You might have to make it circular, you might have to complete a line, you might have to skip things you realise you don’t have time for.
Sometimes it’s a requirement of your visa that you have a plan to leave the country. You’ll need evidence of onward travel – maybe your booking for your flight home or a cross-border bus and hostel booking. They want to know that you’re definitely just touristing and you’re not planning to secretly stay here forever. Visa applications are very keen that you can financially support yourself and that the country isn’t going to end up paying for you. They want to know that you’re leaving.
If you want to be really spontaneous and not have a flight home booked until you either feel like it or you run out of money, this can be awkward. But something you can do is book a random flight with free cancellation. Present evidence of flight, then cancel it and get your money back. That’s not a tip for staying in a country indefinitely, it’s just for making your adventure more open-ended. If you are planning to stay indefinitely, please go down the legal route.
Luggage
Backpacks are essential for backpacking. My colleague’s son went “backpacking” a few years ago and he took a wheelie suitcase fully half his height. Wheelie suitcases don’t generally work in the sort of places frequented by backpackers. You want nice smooth roads for those things. No cobbles, no sand, no stairs. If you’re travelling around by boat, you may have to wade out to scramble into the boat and wheelie suitcases are not designed to be carried at the sort of height you’ll need to keep them out of the water, whereas a backpack will be nice and secure on your back, above the waterline. Airlines will overlook backpacks when they’ll scrutinise suitcases. Example: I went to Germany in December. On my flight out, Lufthansa were grabbing, measuring and marking carry-on suitcases and either charging extra for them or throwing them in the hold. My backpack, an Osprey Farpoint 40, was probably bigger than many of them and almost definitely heavier (on the way back, I could barely lift it!) but because it was on my back, they didn’t care. In fact, I advocate for backpacks over suitcases for pretty much any kind of travel.
It can be really hard to pack for an extended period away but if possible, really try to only pack what you can carry. That doesn’t mean you can only take hand luggage – if you can carry a fully-loaded 70l backpack, more power to you (and more clean clothes!) but you have to be realistic about how much stuff you can physically suspend from your body and how far you can walk carrying it, to say nothing of how much storage space you have at a hostel. I did three weeks on hand luggage in Russia and by the end, my 40l backpack was straining at the zips, I had a handbag straining at the poppers and a carrier bag of food and assorted leftovers that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. The day I got the train from Ekaterinburg to Perm was even worse – knowing it was a train rather than a plane, I think I ended up with four bags which I then had to hike through Perm in search of my hotel.
Safety
Backpacking isn’t inherently more dangerous than any other kind of travel. You’re just as likely to get mugged in the streets of Paris while staying in a boutique hotel with a fleet of designer luggage the hotel porter has had to carry for you as you are on a Thai beach wearing flipflops and a backpack.
The difference is that when you’re away from home, you’re more vulnerable. If I get my wallet stolen at home, I cancel the card, live off what’s in the house and borrow from family or friends until my new card arrives in the post. Abroad, at the very least, I have to wait for someone to send it on to wherever I’m staying, and that might not match with my itinerary. Can’t really extend your stay without being able to pay for it, so adjusting what you’ve already got booked and planned gets difficult. If I lose my passport at home, I just apply for a new one and stay home until it arrives a few week or even months later. If I lose my passport abroad, I get to learn about the process of acquiring an emergency one, which may involve a trip to an embassy.
I was thinking about this in the context of my trip to Russia in 2019. If I’d lost my passport in Murmansk, I’d be in trouble. I presume there’s nowhere in a remote mining city to get a replacement British passport. I’d have to go to Moscow, maybe St Petersburg. But how to get there? I can’t fly down without the passport and when I was there, I had to provide my passport as ID when I went on the train too so that’s not an option either.
So those sorts of things are why you have to be more careful abroad than at home. It’s no more dangerous but the consequences can be messy. Other than that, much the same safety advice applies everywhere.
Don’t get drunk without a) a plan to get home safely b) backup. I know, in an ideal world, you should be able to do what you want where you want. We don’t live in an ideal world. Know how to get home and don’t go alone.
Don’t leave valuables flapping in the wind. People like tote bags. They swallow up a lot of stuff. They’re also spectacularly insecure. You don’t want your wallet sitting right on the top where any passer-by can see it and discreetly grab it.
You might want to get a travel card. Leave your debit or credit cards somewhere secure and use a pre-loaded card that you can top up from your phone. Get that card stolen, you only lose what’s on it right then rather than potentially everything in your entire bank account.
Everything else that you’d think about at home applies too. I don’t go down the dark narrow alley 400m from my front door in the dark. Don’t do that anywhere else in the world either. I don’t get into cars with strangers at home. I wouldn’t do that while I’m abroad. I’ll cover this sort of thing in more detail later in the series, but my point is that a year’s backpacking trip isn’t really more dangerous than a long weekend city break.
Getting around
If you don’t know how to get around and you don’t have a backpacking friend to teach you, you can always ask at your accommodation’s reception. I’m assuming because you’re backpacking that you’ll be staying in a hostel but you might pick a hotel. Both will have helpful people at the front desk. Hostels are more likely to run their own local tours but they’ll definitely be able to point you in the direction of other reputable providers. Hotels don’t often run tours but they can probably also recommend a local company and they’ll often make phone calls for you, especially if you’re not strong enough in the local language to do it yourself.
Buses are likely to be the main way you make longer journeys. Trains are always good but I’ve not seen many backpackers getting around by train. It’s my preferred method, personally. But yes, buses, minibuses, taxis. The drivers may not speak English but they’ll generally recognise the name of the place you’re trying to get to, no matter how bad your pronunciation so you can confirm that you’re on the right bus before committing to it. Bus stations are sometimes not in the middle of town, so be prepared for a walk or taxi at the other end and my experience is that railway stations are often in the least salubrious part of town.
Planes are often an option. If your budget extends to a flight and it’s your best way of getting somewhere, do it. Someone once said “Sometimes the cheapest way of paying is with money”. Is it worth the money to take a plane two hours or would you rather spend a few pennies and then lose a couple of days on three different buses? That’s a decision only you can make, by the way. It’s going to depend on your budget and your itinerary and your circumstances. Don’t take my endorsement of flying as a set-in-stone instruction that you must always take the flight.
Don’t be afraid to spend money
The backpacking aesthetic is of doing everything on the lowest budget possible. If that’s all your budget allows, then fair enough. But if it makes your trip better or it makes you feel safer, then splash the cash. Get a hotel room, get a private hostel room, go on that tour of a lifetime, eat in that expensive restaurant that’s on your bucket list. Buy a pair of shoes that don’t give you blisters. Get an actual camera to document your adventure. Upgrade to the first class seat on the train instead of squishing into the bunks. You don’t have to spend the entire trip in 30-bed hostel rooms, eating ramen and travelling by night minibus. Go full flashpacker – the mindset of backpacking but a fancier budget – if that’s what works for you. You’re having an adventure, not living an Instagram aesthetic.
Document it
I’m biased here because I have a blog and I’m writing my second travel book. But I find my memories fade far quicker if I don’t have several thousand photos, a scrapbook and a blog post per day. You don’t want to live the trip behind a camera but do take lots of photos. Take a notebook and scribble something that resembles a diary whenever you can. It doesn’t have to be pretty. I mean, if you want to make something pretty when you get back, knock yourself out. Collect tickets and receipts and small bits and pieces. Gone are the days, I’m afraid, when people brought back entire bits of furniture from their trips. You’re going to need to squeeze everything into your backpack but you can still bring back souvenirs. I love it in books, especially from the 18th or 19th centuries, when travel was so unusual and novel that travellers brought back exotic souvenirs like sofas and lanterns and homewares you’d need to hire a van to transport but you can fit in things that you can decorate your home with, like pictures and fabrics.
But to bring it back to the subject, yes, document your trip. Put the pictures on Instagram, write a book, film it, do a daily round-up on Facebook, make a scrapbook – do something to make sure that when your memories fade, you can refresh them. As a bonus, some of those act as live “postcards”, so everyone back home can see what you’re doing and that you’re safe without you having to contact them individually.
Make friends
Part of the fun of long-term travel is meeting new people. If you’re staying in a hostel, you’ll meet new people whether you like it or not and I gather they’re almost always so friendly that you’ll get adopted without even trying. You might meet lifelong friends. You might meet Mr Right (For the Next Two Weeks). You might meet people with similar plans to yours, who you’ll become inseparable from for the next part of your adventure. You might meet someone who’s willing to come with you to a bar tonight. You might meet someone who’s happy to sit next to you on your day tour. Oh, you’ll meet all sorts and it’s really up to you what those relationships look like and how long they last.
But if you’re scared you’re going to be lonely – well, you’re not. Not unless you’re actively pushing everyone away. I’m unsociable and I tend to stay in hotels or campsites where I don’t naturally run into people and even I have people still on my Facebook who I’ve met on my travels. In this day and age, you’ll probably swap contact details there and then – “let me find you on [social media of your choice]!” or “write your number in my phone!”. If you’re feeling really bougie, maybe you could have a pack of stickers printed with your contact details. Less formal and ludicrous (under the circumstances) than business cards and harder to lose – put your contact details and your photo on them and then you can just stick them on your new friends.
Am I too old?
No. No, you’re not too old. Most backpackers are between about 18 and 25 because they’re travelling between school and uni or between uni and starting their first adult job and are therefore on a tight budget but you will come across older backpackers and you’ll come across older backpackers.
Young backpackers, by and large, will probably be impressed (possibly in a slightly patronising way) that older people are still travelling – and let’s be honest, they probably regard 30 as old. If you’re older than the typical backpacker and you’re happy to hang out with the youngsters, they’ll absolutely embrace you – you’re the proper grown-up they haven’t realised makes them feel more comfortable, you’re a well of life experience and if you can keep up with the adventures and the drinking, they’ll probably elevate you to legend status.
As an added bonus, you might be higher up the career ladder and have a better budget than you might have had at 18 or 20, so you can do more adventures or activities or go for better quality wherever you value it – more restaurant meals than street food, or first class train tickets rather than standard class or private hostels rooms so you can make friends but still get a good night’s sleep every night.
And I think that’s all I have to say about backpacking for today. I’ve got an entire post later on to introduce you to some solo female backpackers and various other questions and issues will pop up throughout the alphabet. Next time: C is for Communication.