Backpacking
When you realize that your job, your college education, and your drug habits have all failed to make you an even slightly interesting person, it's time to grab a ruck-sack and head off to a country that will hopefully force a personality onto you.
Just The Facts
- Backpacking is a "holiday" for people who can quit their jobs for a vacation.
- When speaking to a backpacker, never refer to it as something so trivial as a "holiday" - call it "travelling" or "seeing the world" or "my time abroad".
- But a rose by any other name...is still just another way of delaying adulthood.
Backpacking - Motives
Hardship, mental stress and physical exhaustion all build character. But for some, these struggles don't come easy: They have to be sought out, accosted and wrestled to the floor. To really "get the most out of life," rich kids and insufferable hipsters have to spend a few months living like poor people in third world countries.
"Walk the Earth, like Kane from Kung-Fu - you know, as long as my iPhone works there."
With $3000 in the bank, a credit card, a guide book and a patronizing love for indigenous music shimmering beneath the surface, so do the wild douchebags venture forth into the world to live like paupers - provided, of course, that paupers live in guide book recommended hostels with hot running water, free Wi-Fi, clean beds and guided tours to local archeological sites to help you really experience your new culture without running into anybody actually from said culture.
How to Backpack
Some rules you should follow to successfully complete your "travels":
1. Don't stay in any one place for longer than a week. Everything that can be learned about a culture can be done in approximately seven days, including 20 hours of hangover time and 35 hours of blogging.
Yeah, I only spent 20 minutes there but I blogged about it for weeks!
2. Don't trust the locals: They're only there to rip you off, steal your belongings and sacrifice you to their ancient gods. Unfortunately, in many places one is obliged to do so.
3. Don't drink the water. Wherever you are. It'll make you infertile or something. We don't know what these fucking locals are drinking, but it sure ain't the water because there are filthy children everywhere. Or the salads. For some reason, there's something wrong with salads in countries that aren't yours.
4. Bring a cane. This has the double use of aiding your walk from the bus station to your hostel, as well as making you look wise and worldly to dirty unshaven backpacking chicks.
God, that cane makes him look a shaman, and that faux-hawk makes him look...well the cane is pretty hot, anyway.
5. Take pictures. Of absolutely everything. Exotic fountains, road signs, different electrical sockets, it's all relevant and all important. Remember, there are no bad pictures, and there are also never too many, thanks to Facebook bulk-uploader! Finally, remember to be pissy and entitled if they don't get enough comments.
Everybody cares about your "journey," they just don't know it yet!
hah. completely terrible. so dont bother traveling because some fat douchey comedy writer whos bad at his job will act smug towards you for for thinking you're acting smug? the shitmobile just came about full circle and blew itself. and its also unfunny. F-
ReplyI think the point is, travel but don't be a smug douchey hipster and buy into all the bullsh@t about your experience being so unique and different from the 1000's of other people that have done the same thing. The other point is don't make the loser mistake of thinking anyone else gives a f#ck about your trip or thinks better of you for it.
i have to agree with DonZabu. it isn't the traveler you hate, it's faux-hippy smug hipster types who only do things so someone else will notice. i've gone on amazing trips which don't need to be broadcast anywhere because i didn't do it for facebook or a blog.
Replyagreed. it sucks bringing a not outdoorsy person with you to go hiking/backpacking
Man, this was really pointlessly bitter.
ReplyThis article is true. You are only bothered by it if it applies to you.
Replywhy did you have to use the word "backpacker"... that is such a large cross section of people its like saying "traveler"...so what now anyone that uses a backpack and stays in hostels is a douche? ok ok so what if they get a suitcase and stay at a hotel? still no? ok ok what if they just don't go anywhere? I know what you were getting at (hipster rich kids with too much time on there hands) but try to more specific before you insult half the world PS: i love the sponsored links at the bottom of this article "backpack Europe" LOL gold
ReplyGreat. Another anti-hipster aversion fad topic. Bravo, Cracked. Way to scrape the bottom of the comedic barrel.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Repliesthumbs down for cheap comedy
When did Cracked ever claim to be above cheap comedy? Remember when we had like 15 Twilight-bashing articles in a row?
you have a point there^
Ha ha! I worked in a hostel in Chicago for like 2 years! I had forgot about these people! It's so true!
Replyespecially the part about the locals!
The world is to crowded to make traveling worth it. I like solitude, unless there is some pristine and temperate wilderness where I can wander for weeks aimlessly with no fear of ever meeting anybody else, its not worth it. In my opinion.
ReplyYeah. I'd want to travel to get away from people, not run into them every five seconds. But there aren't squatters rights anymore...depressing.
so much f*****g eurotrash backpacks in Aus
Replyshut up you racist Aussie
How would you know what we're like ^
Ha this is so true
Replymy shithole country gets a lot of backpakers. they are amusing to watch. from a distance.
ReplyMexico?
I apologise for my earlier, whiny comment. I was in a very bad mood and a lot of pain. I guess I just wished they included the rest of the backpacker community and not focused on the one subset and giving them the name of the whole.
ReplyI mentally put "hipster" in front of "Backpacker" and the article became funny.
Lesson: Think before you post. Also: Posting in a bad mood makes you a douche.
But owning it does save face. Nj.
IDK, if the price is right, f'it. Upside: $ you didn't spend @ high-end lodging is money spent touring Versailles, Neuschwanstein, etc. It's all relative. D-bagging like a special snowflake isn't.
ReplyPlenty of bad apples in every bunch, doesn't matter. Wearing your "jounrey-time" spent w/ disposable income on your sleeve has a karmic way of correcting itself: robbed by locals is choice among my favs.
I love it when Cracked takes them on! Hahahaha! The emos, the hipsters, the goddamn Hippies. You know what, I'm more down with Goths and frikking boy band fans (okay, there haven't really been any around in a while), then I am with any of those losers.
ReplyI live in Mozambique, we are lousy with backpackers. What always surprises me is when a backpacker tries to engage in a spirited political debate with me. Don't. You. don't. know. shit.
Stop being so f*****g pretentious.
glad to see that no matter where you're from there are always douche bags like KZucula
cracked has an awfully big chip on its shoulder all of a sudden...
ReplyI was thinking the same... it takes someone of great pretension to be annoyed by someone of great pretension... lol
it always amazes me how rich kids go out of their way to become unemployable.
Replythey seem to think that you cant just see right trough to their insides and see that they are pretentious, full of s**t and cant actualy do anything, just talk about it.
fair enough im "free spirited" in my own right with my managere of various wild and tame animals in my back garden who are my best friends (i dont like people) and my love of art and litrature but i mean i know i dont have anything to prove and i dress in your standard off the rail, chain store clothing and i listen to normal music and i have never left my little island of ireland only once when i was 4 years old to attend a funeral in england
and i certainly dont need to leave it to brauden my mind because it was never a narrow mind in the first place.
you can learn more talking to strangers at a bus stop on your daily commute than in 2 years of travel. i have had some of the deepest conversations in my life waiting for the 16:00 cork to galway bus with little old ladies, tourists and my fellow irish workforce.
i was at a bus stop once talking to a few old ladies concerned about the governmental cut backs and little did i know it was a precourser to one of the biggest anti governmental marches in 20 years in dublin when they took away the free medical care for the elderly.
you dont need to drink sewage water, catch rare native STD's and possibly loose a limb to be enlightened, just take irish public transport.
and whats that you want emotional and physical hardship? try and go from cork to limerick when the rain is pissing down on you and the bus is stuck on the motor way miles from your location when there is a big munster rugby match in thomond park and you are surrounded by the young offenders out of youthreach trying to get home and getting very annoyed and wondering if mabey you have cash on you, and about 40 munster supporters already drunk and looking for fun traveling up to limerick for the match. you have your robery, mortal danger and possible sexaual assault there and all at home in your own back yard. what more could you ask for?
I guess it's fine when Cracked makes snide fun of douchebags that aren't its readership demographic. But don't start talking s**t about them upper-middle class, backpack-tripping tween hipsters! They'll whine and scratch and call you a big meany!
ReplyHey, kids! Part of growing up is learning that, despite what mommy said, you ain't special. Also? Whatever subculture/movement/trend/band/sport you decided to align yourself with in high school or college is just as full of s**t as everyone else's.
Learn how to take a ribbing, for fuck's sake.
Why so butthurt? Did mommy not allow you to move out of the basement to travel the world?
ReplyAs an avid traveller and backpacker, I resent this article.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesI shave every day - I use a straight razor so I don't have to worry about charging an electric or running out of cartridges - I stay with locals, I wear whatever they're wearing(Levis and Nike are the most common) and eat what they eat.
I don't like Lonely Planet, don't have tattoos or piercings and I use whatever shoes are appropriate for the day.
I don't do eco-tours or ride the tour bus.
I have never stayed in a hostel.
I am not monetarily rich by any measure and never have been.
I understand who this is targeted at, and think that they, while douches, are not as bad as you evidently think. And still, they are the minority among backpackers. I was thinking this would have a light-hearted and funny comparison of the ten or twelve kinds of actual packers in the community; peppered with deliberate and obvious misunderstandins and other humour.
I was disappointed and insulted. You chose to focus all your attention on one kind of backpacker - the hipster/naive college student/rich kid out to find him/herself.
Your bitterness destroyed this article, which had so very much potential. What the hell did one of these hipsters do to you that you have to rail against the entire backpacker community? Yes, they're naive, self-righteous little pricks, but, again, they're the minority and they do grow out of it - usually over the course of their holiday, which is the whole point anyway.
Did one steal your GF or something? Sheesh.
Sorry, I have to call fail on this one. It was more of a rant than a humour article.
It was a failure article, but you're being equally as butthurt and bitter complaining about this article that the author was writing it. Making fun of stereotypes is the patron saint of comedy, and the hipster douchebag image is the prevelant stereotype of backpackers to the rest of the world. So man up and deal with it, seriously.
And I acknowledge that I am too being bitter by complaining about your complaining.
People who complain make me SICK.
LOL. I found this article hilarious. And I just shaved most of my hair off (I'm female) for a backpacking trip I'll be departing on in less than a month. Sounds like some of that humor hit a little too close to home for someone!
Better to defy the convention by actively doing whatever you do to subscribe to demographic 'x' than to scream into the darkness about how 'y' was unfair. It is actually discrediting your position.
This is how it works. The following statement is not funny: French people, on the whole are polite in the right circumstances, are welcoming and hospitable to foreign cultures but have a fierce sense of national identity. Their food is famous throughout the world, although like anyone they are partial to fast food.
The following statement IS funny: The French are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
See what I did there?
It may suprise you to know that the writer of the article is himself living in a poor country, so the accuracy of the article is not in question. What is in question is whether or not someone can pull their head out their ass long enough to appreciate a joke.
However, you did prove one point, you took this article as a opener to a conversation whereby you talk about your travels and how different you are. The defence rests your honor.
Looks like fun. Wouldn't broaden my horizons for s**t but I feel it would really tie me back to my ancestral roots by running around random countries for a kick. If I can't go to the dark continent to shoot a rhinoceros, I'm going to do the next best thing goddamit.
Reply