There’s a lot of allure to bouncing from hostel to hostel with only your backpack for company. Backpacking is the ultimate form of travel freedom; it’s cheap, it’s flexible, and you can meet tons of interesting new people everywhere you go. Sure, backpacking is great … when you’re 20. By the time you’ve hit your mid-thirties, however, it might be time to consider another approach to travel. One that involves your own room and actual plans. Trust: there is a definite point at which you stop being one of the gang and become that creepy oldster looming in the corner. Wondering if you might be a little too old to backpack? Here are some tips for spotting the end of the line.
1. You Don’t Recognize Any of the Music Playing Around You
When you walk into most hostels, there’s a generally agreed upon “chill” area where most of the visitors can gather at the beginning and end of each day and swap stories or share tips. In this area, there’s always music playing. Sometimes it’s some Euro oddity, sometimes it’s K-pop, or J-pop, or just, plain pop. Lots of times it’s Bob Marley. However, when the music shifts to songs with lyrics you actually understand and you still don’t recognize anything, it’s a sure sign that you’re starting to get less interested in the junk that young people are calling music these days. It’s not a bad thing, it just means that you have way less in common with the people around you and you might be better off just checking into a hotel and playing your old music.
2. Dropping Molly and Then Hitting a Landmark Does Not Sound Like Fun
When you’re staying in a hostel, the temptation to spend your down time partying is pretty overwhelming. It doesn’t take much — or really any — effort to find some extracurricular substances, and when you’re young, it might be a little fun to experiment with your new buddies, have some fun on the town, and then wake up the next day to hike to some remote location. By the time you hit thirty, no matter how fit you might be, you can’t just burn the candle from both ends and expect to have a good time. Is getting a good night’s sleep a sin or something? Heck no!
3. Admit it, Meeting New People Sucks
When you’re young and inexperienced, wandering headfirst into a situation filled with strangers is exciting and interesting. Then, after a few years and enough rooms filled with strangers, you realize that people kind of suck. Oh, some are fine (and you keep those folks close to you), but for the most part, people are loud, smelly, and inconsiderate. You know it’s true. After you meet a few dozen people from another country, it kind of loses its allure and you’re left bunking with a near-steady slew of buttholes. At some point, it’s okay to say hello to some locals at a restaurant or bar and then call it a night. That’s still fun, but then you don’t ruin the experience by essentially living with that person for a few days.
4. Sharing Is the Worst
Share a bathroom, share a bedroom, share your public space. It’s the worst. There’s no harm in admitting that you’ve gotten to a point in your life where you deserve a little private space. You can only share the bathroom with someone who just unloaded a gallon of pad thai in close quarters before enough is enough.
5. You Have Plans
When you’re backpacking through a country, more often than not, your plan is see the country. That’s it, because research is for old people. When you get to a point in your life where your excitement about a trip actually leads to the urge to do a little bit of research on some landmarks you might want to see, then you’re officially too old to be backpacking. You’re now a day tripper. See, a backpacker can find some friends and join them on their weird journey the next day, because a backpacker didn’t have any plans to begin with. When you’re an adult who shows up knowing what you want to see and you know where you’ll be at the end of the day, you really don’t even need a backpack.
6. You’re Starting to Wonder Exactly How Recently Those Sheets Have Been Washed
Let’s face it, when you’re young, you realize that disease is a real thing. But it’s an abstract concept, something that happens to other people and the elderly. When you’ve actually been on the receiving end of a few diseases, though, you know that those mottled old sheets the chain-smoking patron of the hostel has spread on the bed are probably less than familiar with the inside of a washing machine. Are you being a little stiff and unadventurous? Sure you are, but “stiff and unadventurous” are better than “dysentery in a foreign country” any day of the week.
7. No, Dude, I’m Not Interested in Buying Any Pot, I Promise
Seriously, drugs are everywhere and you don’t have to try at all to get hold of them. In fact, even if you’re not looking, you can still get offered drugs by virtue of being in the same room as some young folks. At some point in your life, though, you realize that actually remembering your vacation is one of the best parts of travel. At that point, it’s best to just avoid the situation entirely.
8. You’re Here to See the Sights and Learn, Not Do Drugs and Try to Get Laid
When you’re young and you have your whole life laid out in front of you, it was possible to travel to a foreign country, hit the bars, flirt with some foreigners, and generally just do the same stuff you’d do on a Friday night back home, just in a new place. Sure, you might hit a cultural landmark the next day, but it was to take a picture and then head back to the hostel to take a nap before the bars open. When you’re older, though, you actually want to take a tour and read some of those shiny, little plaques scattered around the temple or landmark. In other words, you’re here to experience the culture of the country, not just the nightlife. That’s okay. You’re an adult, and maybe it’s time to accept it.
