Outside Vienna State Opera [Wiki]Interesting article about when you're too old to backpack any more:
*you start dreading the act of travelling.
*it's taking you longer and longer to get ready in the mornings.
*you become obsessed with making sure there's a decent place to go to the toilet.
*there are kids.
*you start to hate the pub scene.
*priorities change, especially comfort wise.I was reflecting on this and the days of not only backpacking but car trips where we slept in the car by the roadside or in some little sideroad.
I only ever stayed in three hostels, the last in Finland and they were appalling – insecure, unfriendly management and you couldn't get in until 4 p.m.
One comment was interesting, mentioning that when the fellow guests are young and raucous and you want the light out at 11 and then proceed to snore them to death, it's time to give it away.
Now we're into this, the 'tourist destination' is equally as dire. Tenerife is a case in point where all the tourist hotels are grouped in a sort of ghetto in one area and if you don't hire a car, you only get to see hotels.
Either way, with this carbon footprint thing and iris scans, the incentive seems to have dropped away, in my case, to less than zero.The backpacking thing is really a young persons thing [with some older exceptions] but methinks a law of natural attrition will cause most to fall away soon after 30.
The timetable at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof
The backpacking thing is really a young persons thing [with some older exceptions] but methinks a law of natural attrition will cause most to fall away soon after 30.
ReplyDeleteBit like hitch-hiking then.
A post coming up tomorrow? I look forward to reading your excuses for this pathetic perfomance.
ReplyDeleteNeil is now on almost 750 votes. Just wait until Latin America kicks in tonight - you only have about three hours to wait.
God, The Exile. Are you 3 years old?
ReplyDeleteI have been to your blog( when I have insomnia- great cure BTW).
James has one of the best blogs ion the blogosphere and he does not need awards to prove it.
750 votes! Is THAT all? Surely there are far more Epsilons on the blogosphere than that.
I've always liked my comfort too much to ever have back packed.I don't even like camping.
ReplyDeleteThat's why he's got less than 120 is it? I have decided to toss a few votes Bright Meadow's way. That Pub Philosopher bloke needs to come in last for having too much gob.
ReplyDeleteIt's a long time since I've been a backpacker but they sure were great times. All over Britain and lots of the continent to boot. Those hostels were something else and the people one met were amazing.
ReplyDeleteI'm even too old for camping now!
Exile the world is not about winning votes- you seem to be a prat so scurry back into the undergrowth and come out when you have something pleasant to say.
ReplyDeleteOn backpacking James, my worst experience of a hostel was in China where the toilet didn't work. Having said that my best experience was in russia- a really great hostel in St Petersburg. It was on the road between Nevsky Prospekt and the Hermitage and it was run by a really lovely woman, she must have been about 28 when I visited, and was very keen to help and very keen to do things for her guests. I've had this experience with a small youth hostel in Ireland as well. Basically the hostel owners turned the whole thing into a really fun experience where I met tons of people and enjoyed the city more than I would have otherwise.
I've never back-packed or even gone camping, as [a] I'm a city girl and [b] I won't share bathrooms or sleep where there might be spiders! And I have vowed not to take a long-haul flight again until you're allowed, once more, to take all make-up products on board. The thought of not being able to cleanse, tone and put it all back on again before landing is too much for me! When you reach un certain age and look a certain way, it gets dangerous to stay in dodgy hotels. Bedides, I'd rather stay home than do that!
ReplyDeleteI do thank you good friends but the reason I don't answer the Exile is I'd like to hoist him with his own petard. Let him babble - it's all material for the post.
ReplyDeleteBackpacking must have a different connotation in Europe than here in the US. Our idea of backpacking is to hike into wilderness areas where there are no buildings, roads, or motor vehicles. It sounds like in Europe it is more like hitchhiking in our country.
ReplyDeleteActually it was about winning votes AND making middle class filth who have got more gob that a cow's got cunt feel like sad-arsed losers.
ReplyDeleteNone of this would have happened if you, blog owner, had not got lippy. That's what brought me into the contest. Sorry, pal, but Neil did more than anyone to make sure that the warmongers didn't get to save face by bringing the Iraqi collaborators over.
Funny how all your little campaigns fail, isn't it?
Love you too, Exile and hope the weather's nice down in sunny Mexico.
ReplyDelete