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I love "backpacking". I have done many long trips to rather unusual parts of the world, almost always alone and "unguided". But lately I can't shake the feeling that it is becoming very difficult to find "real" information sources. With real I mean sources that will not shy away from saying it plainly when a city or area is shitty, ugly, not worth visiting, tourist trap etc but also will go out of its way to explore the unusual even when it is not always savory and entirely safe.
The typical guide books are just contend with giving a dispassionate list of every somewhat touristic part of the country, trying to be inoffensive as possible. I sometimes pirate the old Lonely Planets and the difference is day and night. If I buy a guide book it is because I want to be told the "insider" info which will be missing from the tourist office website. What use is it to produce a print version of everything I could find on google maps anyway?
Same goes for blogs. Perhaps this is more of an SEO issue but I used to be able to dig up plenty of amateur travel blogs or even forums full of people giving their unfiltered opinions and experiences. Now it is nigh impossible to sift through the "10 TOP EXPERIENCES" lists all regurgitating the same bullshit. Reddit is not a good replacement here, and Facebook backpacker groups are typically too inactive. I almost feel some nostalgia scrolling through some regional backpacker groups I used to be active in. They were great places to get up-to-date information and meet people. Now they are just dead. TripAdvisor and its forums are totally not a replacement here either. Why does every basic source about every random Colombian city keep going on about some graffiti street but not say a word about best clubs to dance with local girls? Is anyone actually going to these places for shitty graffiti?
But what is the culture war angle here? It is slight but I get the sense that the root cause of all this is the extreme global connectedness/homogeneity and disappearance of even the possibility of an adventure no matter how small. I can't escape the feeling that such "insider info" venues have disappeared because there is no demand for insider info anymore. Every remotely pretty place in the World has either already become dotted with a tourism infrastructure neatly exposed by airbnb/booking/tripadvisor/skyscanner/tinder or rapidly on its way. You can count on the locals drinking the same beverages, eating the same food, watching the same TV, dressing up in same fashion trends and living in same houses as you do. And if there is still a gritty or untamed side to it, it is considered almost rude to mention this. As if you are insulting the locals, as if you owe it to them to herd every foreigner to a couple carefully curated quarter away from anything interesting.
But then I have to wonder, what is even the point of traveling then? Were the decades between 1960s-2010s just a fluke or a transition period when most of the world became somewhat accessible through infrastructure development but did not assimilate into mundane sameness so completely yet? When you didn't need to be Lawrence of Arabia to see the world but it still took some self-selection of the risk taker personality? Should one consign oneself to using vacation time for skiing at resorts and hikes at well marked well frequented paths and just give up on the joy of discovering something genuinely foreign?
I realize fully that I am very incoherent. Perhaps I am just getting older and struggling to face up to the reality that I cannot just go to some forgotten part of the world with a return ticket two months later and "figure it out". I have responsibilities, vacation time is valuable, I can exchange money for convenience. I am writing this mostly to try to organize my thoughts and figure out if it is me that changed or the world.
P.S. please share with me if you know of any forums, bloggers, authors, publishers, youtubers honestly whatever that would prove me wrong and show adventure is alive and well at least somewhere. I really enjoy reading stuff like this
Try the developing world. India, Philippines, Laos. And get out of the capitals. I hear Africa is still pretty wild.
I think your thesis is largely correct. I used to to travel for work extensively before Covid and was noticing the same thing. There are still parts of the world that are not completely homogenized, but their days are numbered. This might be your last chance if it’s not already gone.
I knew it was final call when I met a Bulgarian hipster that was indistinguishable from my local variety 5 miles away.
India is a great call out.
People speak English, generally safer than than the crazy parts of Africa, and the locals will be more than happy to give you the real down low.
I genuinely find more diversity in my own country when travelling across states, than I do when travelling across the western world.
The 2 best locations to backpack are :
Western Ghats - Go at the end of the wet season. Beautiful rainforests that remind me most of hiking in Hawaii or Puerto Rico. Is well settled, and you will pass through some relatively-untouched ancient ruins as your pass through smaller settlements. One of the safest, cleanest and wealthiest parts of India. You will walk through a lot of tea-plantations and orchards. Some of the best food in the country and unquestionably the best fruits in the entire world.
Himalayan foothills - No, I do not mean the HIMALAYAS. The foothills are much more fun to backpack through. They are safe, well settled and the pahari/nepali people are some of the most humble and welcoming people you'll meet. Himachal, Uttarakhand & Nepal are the best places for this. Lots of interesting dairy & red-meat-based items and soup based dishes. The food is surprisingly simple & mild by Indian standards, no less flavorful. Heartiest meals you'll have. The best cheese I've had in my life was here (Kalari), and you can't find it in their own regional capitals, let alone anywhere else in India or the world. Spring here is like Switzerland on steroids.
Don't they have literal man-eating tigers there? Maybe tigers are less of a threat to "alone and unguided" backpackers than I am imagining, but this brings up a general problem with international travel beyond "touristy" places. Most people have no idea what the local dangers are in places they have never spent significant time in. In the Southeast United States, people know not to let small children or pets wander around the water's edge unattended. Tourists from other states don't have these instincts. People who grew up in India probably have an innate "common sense" understanding of how to not get eaten by tigers. OP almost certainly does not.
Absolutely correct. This is where I was trying to get to when I was complaining how it is difficult to find good critical information. Fuck TOP 10 EXPERIENCES I want to know if the area has tigers/alligators/cartels/spider that instantly kills you/guerrilla groups.
It is a fun story to tell now, but I was pissed off big time at the time when I hitched up a mountain village in Central Colombia to see some interesting ruins and turned out the local guerrilla group decided to blockade the whole area for a week, blow up the power lines and threaten to attack any vehicle so nobody dared to drive around the whole time.
I would have definitely preferred any of the internet/book sources I checked to give some honest info so I would at least be prepared for potential problems lol
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Man-eating tigers is in the Sundarbans in the north-east. But it is a good thing to mention either way.
There are tiger preserves in the western ghats, but those are easy to spot on the map and avoid. It is near impossible to run into a tiger outside a tiger preserve in the ghats. Some forests have Leopards, but Leopards do not attack adult humans, so you should be fine. It is like hiking in Yellowstone or Glacier national park. Don't fuck with the Bears. 99% the bears/tiger/leopards won't fuck back.
India doesn't have trail systems like the US, and the western ghats are rain-forests otherwise. So backpacking in the western ghats, means going from village to village using routes that used by humans, bullock carts, farmers and motorbikes. These are well occupied lands, and you'll see the occasional person as you traverse through people's fields, orchards and occasional well-travelled jungle routes. Wild animals steer clear of these areas, they they'd rather avoid humans if possible.
Agreed
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I missed a trip to Bhutan that I really regret. Doubt I’ll have another chance at that one.
As an Indian, I am gonna GLOAT. Big time.
My ass-wipe toilet-paper of a passport gives me 1 and only 1 real perk. I get to get to Bhutan Visa- free. MUHAHAHA
Is this what it feels like to be from a developed nation, but for every other country ? 🥲(what's the policy on emojis on the sub)
Turkish passport is bad for first world, but quite top notch for any country on-par or poorer than us. Definitely understand the sentiment
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I am too autistic to understand any beyond basic smiley faces, for one data point.
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Yeah a friend lived in Madagaskar for a couple months and the stories were wild. Perhaps I should give it a try. I am personally not a big fan of places where there is a real threat to your personal safety or health. Forces you to be a lot more cautious and timid, and stick to the well beaten path. Definitely learned my lesson in this regard after some nights out in Brazilian cities that I tried to act as if I am still in Istanbul.
Try Botswana, especially if you enjoy nature tourism. Ghana has a lot going on too, from what I hear. Stay out of the Sahel and South Africa unless you have a guide/fixer.
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There are very few places on earth that are more dangerous (as a tourist) than the most violent large Latin American cities. Most of Africa is much much safer as long as you stay out of conflict zones, for example (and I mean conflict zones specifically, not say ‘the Congo in general’, much of which is very safe).
I have travelled Latin America extensively and there is a very large disparity in safety between countries/cities/neighborhoods. Also some places are rife with crimes where only the gang members kill each other while in others randos on the street are also targeted. I have found Argentina/Chile/Peru to be very safe places for example. Brazil was overall horrible and Colombian cities seemed to have decent areas and very bad ones.
My advantage might have been that I am quite a Mediterranean looking guy so I don't stand out as a tourist. Most people by default assumed I was Brazilian or something. I am a bit apprehensive that in Africa I will be very noticeably a foreigner.
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