It's ok to not be a real backpacker (part 2)

Today's average backpacker is more often than not, is a backpacker only because of the equipment that they are using to store their stuff in. I have said on many occasions that the backpack, regardless of how high-quality or name-brandy it is, is one of the worst methods of storing your belongings while traveling to most of the world's destinations.

In the more than 20 years I have been traveling, most of the people who are "backpacking" are mostly just on an extended vacation / holiday, they aren't actually going anywhere that the backpacks were actually necessary. Nowhere was this more evident than in South East Asia, which used to be a fantastic "beginner's area" for backpacking because it was cheap, easy, and relatively safe.

In the few months that I spent all over the place in SEA, I met a ton of people and I have made this trip both before and after the internet handled all of your lodging destination decisions. In both situations most of the people that I met were traveling a very clear path that tons of people have done before. It was so common in fact, that all of the travel agencies had picked up on this over the years and already had all of your potential destinations on their advertisements.

I'm not saying that as a backpacker you have to only travel to places that other people don't, that is stupid. I once tried to do this and found out that there is a reason why nobody goes to a lot of places and that is because there is nothing to see there and it's boring.

The point is though and I'll just use my first trip as an example: I arrived in Singapore, which has about as much nature as any skyscraper filled city. A backpack is completely unnecessary here. Most people would head north from there to Melacca, which although much smaller than Singapore is still a cement port city with very little in the way of nature. Next up people make a quick stop at the nature-filled (sarcasm) city of Kuala Lumpur where once again, the backpack is completely unnecessary because everything is paved. The people would normally head to Penang and, you guessed it, there is pavement and footpaths everywhere and you are more than likely going to be dropped off at your door by the minivan anyway.

After Penang, most "backpackers" are done with Malaysia and will make a choice of where to go in Thailand next. Most people, i think wisely, skip almost all of the south and will make their way to Koh Lanta or Krabi, where with the exception of a few bungalow operations that are seriously out of the way, you are going to have footpaths and ramps the entire way to your bungalow entrance. No backpack necessary once again. After that people seem to hit Phuket, then Samui, then Phang Ngan, Koh Tao, Bangkok, Chiang Mai etc. With very rare exceptions a rolling suitcase would be perfectly fine for all of these places. In the situations where it might not be, there are porters that you can pay a few dollars to put your case on their push cart and they'll take it for you all the way to reception.

So now not only do you get to take in the scenery and enjoy yourself a bit more but you are probably contributing a few bucks to someone that is most likely desperately poor. I try to help these sorts of people as much as possible because I rarely, if ever, will give money to beggars because this has turned into a business in too many places in the backpacking world.

The point of all of this is that most "backpackers" are not really backpackers and there is absolutely no shame in this. As I have gotten older I do not want to use my backpack anymore nor do I want to go to places where a backpack of that magnitude would be necessary (pro tip: There are very few places where a backpack actually is necessary.) Even though I have traveled extensively, probably more than most people on the planet, I have been to very few places where a backpack was actually necessary and if you travel with one, you are only making your life MORE difficult by choosing to do it that way.