This was published 6 years ago
Why backpackers aren't as fun as they used to be
By Ben Groundwater
Backpackers at a beach in Thailand for a full moon party.Credit: Shutterstock
There's a danger in assuming that things used to be better, back in your day. I mean, yes, obviously Triple J used to be better, and cricket used to be better, and politicians used to be better (Bob Hawke v Malcolm Turnbull? No contest) – but that doesn't mean everything was. It's easy to look at the past through rose-coloured glasses.
Still, I get the feeling that backpackers used to be better. They used to be more fun. They used to be more adventurous, wilder, bigger risk-takers. And the fact that they've changed is not entirely the fault of the people doing the budget travelling these days.
See also: Why Australia is the land of the idiot
Social media has taken the fun out of travel.Credit: Shutterstock
There's a huge difference between backpacking now and backpacking about 20 years ago, and part of that difference is attitude. Talk to any tour leader or tour bus driver who's been around the traps for a while and they'll be only too happy to complain to you about how things of changed since they first started. Their passengers, they'll say, used to be more laidback, used to be more fun.
When things went wrong back then, the backpackers on board were pretty likely to just roll with the punches. They'd be happy to pitch in to wash the dishes on the budget camping tours. They'd come and chat to the crew while they were cooking and offer to lend a hand.
But then things started to change. The kids got more demanding. They wanted nicer accommodation, though for the same cheap price. They didn't want to wash dishes – you don't go on holidays to do chores. They wanted everything to run on time. They wanted everything to work they way it did in the brochure. If it didn't, they'd complain.
I've got no doubt those older crew members are right. Young travellers did used to be more relaxed. There's an expectation now of perfection that there never used to be when people were travelling on a budget.
But there's more to it than that, more that contributes to the change in the way young people are travelling, and more importantly, to the way young people are conducting themselves when they're travelling. And the most important of those is social media.
Anyone over the age of 30 can probably remember a time when they could travel completely anonymously. No one at home needed to know where you were at any given time. And even if they thought they knew, there was no way for them to verify it.
More importantly though, when you were travelling, no one you met needed to know who you were. And once again, even if they thought they did, there was no way for them to verify it. As soon as you left your home you were free to be wherever and whoever you wanted to be. You could get up to all sorts of mischief and no one would ever know. It'd be your own little secret. Travel was the ultimate freedom in that way.
Now though, things have changed. You have a wild night in some seedy backpacker bar in Bangkok and all of a sudden a couple of new "friends" have tagged you in photos on Facebook and everyone back home knows all about it. You're popping up in your old friends' feeds doing all sorts of things in all sorts of places.
Backpackers now have to worry about the image they're presenting of themselves as travellers. They're curating the perfect Instagram photos to show everyone back home what an amazing time they're having. They're thinking about which Snapchat filter is going to be both hilarious and jealousy inducing. They're considering whether they've got a good enough pic for their Tinder profile.
Almost everything you do overseas now is public – it's on the permanent record. That has to change the way people travel, it has to affect the risks that they take and the way in which they conduct themselves.
It used to be that you were free to experiment when you travelled, you could tinker with who you were and what you stood for and decide what felt best for you in the end. That's what everyone calls "finding yourself". Now, however, all of those micro-phases you go through while you travel stand to be recorded and published and shown to everyone, if not by you then by the people you happen to meet along the way.
That's an unfortunate thing. I feel for young travellers who are only just setting out to see the world. Sure, they're probably going to be more demanding and – yes – slightly more entitled than travellers of old once were. But they're also going to be forced to think about their public profile while they're away, about the way the things they do while they're travelling will be portrayed to their friends back home, and the way in which those things may affect them for the rest of their lives.
That has to make travellers less adventurous, less fun. And there's not a whole lot they can do about it.
Do you think younger travellers used to be more fun? Is social media affecting the way people conduct themselves then they're travelling now?
Instagram: instagram.com/bengroundwater
See also: 'Begbackers' - backpackers begging for money are a disgrace
See also: 13 signs you're too old to be a backpacker
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