Backpackers , livre ebook

BACKPACKERS
THE BUTTERFLY TRAVELERS

Brice Leclercq

2023
Cet ebook a été réalisé avec IGGY FACTORY. Pour plus d'informations rendez-vous sur le site : www.iggybook.com
Table des matières

BACKPACKERS : THE BUTTERFLY TRAVELERS
ORIGINS : the concept's HISTORY
ARCHETYPES OF TRAVELERS : WE DON' ALL TRAVEL THE SAME WAY SO WHAT ARE THEY?
NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND TRAVEL : How TRAVEL CHANGED THESE LAST 30 YEARS
DANGERS AND LIMITS : THE TOURISTIC PERVERT EFFECT
TRAVEL: AN EYE OPENING EXPERIENCE : The wonderful skills to acquire during long term traveling
THE NOMAD'S SPIRAL : OR THE ADDITION TO MOVEMENT
SOURCES : BIBLIOGRAPHy
BACKPACKERS
 
THE BUTTERFLY TRAVELERS
 
Who never dreamed about making their life a journey? A trip? “Un Voyage”
 
To put their backpacks on and leave it all behind  to go explore the world and his infinite surprises? I’ve been disappointed more than once about some travelers’ attitudes and behaviors, and  to be totally honest with my own as well…It is now upon this book, to try to clarify what it means to travel today, what is a backpacker, and what are the threats and limits to this activity. 
From a romantic idea, to a mainstream concept, the Backpacking became thanks to Generation Y, a goal to achieve, a step to go through, a dream to catch…
Our old school holidays, are no longer enough, and the  « World tour » or sabbatic year start to be a common thing to hear for employers.
Many terms pop out to qualify these new types of travelers that they attribute to themselves, some being a bit far fetched : adventurers, globe-trotters, wanderers, vagabonds… 
The notion of traveling (and the new technologies linked to it) evolved quite rapidly, during these last 25 years. The creation and development of some of them made access to the entire globe easier than for our ancestors.    A phenomena, on such a large scale, brings its consequences, sometimes quite negative, on our approach to traveling and tourism.  
 
So now, it is time to take a step back. To put my backpack on the floor and look at what I’ve done these last 6 years, and assume the consequences. To maybe put the light on some effects that are unconscious and still will be for the next generation of travelers.
 Let’s take the first step and throw ourselves in a world, well known to the millennials, but quite intriguing for the boomers for whom this type of trip was pretty rare. The backpack is only a tool. But it’s now also a manifestation of what the new traveler movement is about.  
 
I’ve been one of them, during 5 years of traveling through Canada, South East-Asia, New Zealand and Australia. I’ve been part of groups, and changed so much during these years, but my observational skill was always thirsty for more. It is fascinating to observe a group’s interactions, especially between different cultures, in this big bowl of mixture that we call globalization. 
Those observations and many (MANY) talks, gave me an overview of what the phenomena was about, and saw the size of it and what could be harmful about it.
 
 Far from me the idea of criticizing people who travel. You will understand through this that it was the best years of my life, and it is HIGHLY recommended to get out of your comfort zone anyway. But some basic rules have to be put out there, to make everybody think about their way of traveling and their choices, especially in those times of ecological realization. Exploring the world can be a lifetime’s goal, but other projects start to trigger me now, and it is why I’m publishing this one now, to digest and assimilate what I felt, and what I thought during these years of traveling abroad. 
Now it is time to explore the origins, the inspirations, the limits and the big changes that went through the backpacking movement.
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of the 
BUTTERFLIES BACKPACKERS
 
ORIGINS
 
the concept’s HISTORY
 
Going back to the origins of man’s traveling, would be an entire other book, and many exist already because the very true essence of our oldest ancestors was nomadic.  Fruit picking and hunting were their daily activities, and surviving their only goal. Mankind, as HomoSapiens, has been 95 % of the time nomadic and we are now  living in the 5 % of sedentarity. It is so fresh from the perspective of human existence.
Men only started to set up somewhere around 15000 years ago (from the last data from the CNRS). This sedentarity contributed, let’s be honest, to our fast evolution, full of inventiveness and resilience, to model what we know we are today : a sociable animal, part of his own national culture, among 1000 of different visions of life, religions, beliefs, customs to form civilization.
In some of them actually, like the Bedouin, or the Mongols, their lifestyle can still be nomadic. It becomes more and more difficult and most of Western culture, among the French one, forgot about that a long time ago.  Sedentarity rhymes with comfort and stability. And most of us never questioned that. But not all of us, since it is exactly this realization that the backpacking movement tries to challenge: mankind is made for wandering, and can’t be a prisoner of his own home. There is so much knowledge outside and so little at home. Adventure awaits as soon as you are out of your own country. The group that claims this first and started to challenge the idea of sedentarity were the vagabonds. In the middle age, this term is mostly used for a hobo without attachment to material things, and who have no friends or family, going from town to town. It is more of a choice than a struggle. Nietzsche, Stirner and Gide praised this later, as a superior way of thinking, that opposes a resistance to the establishment. To the common thinking. We are therefore talking about a resistant, a free spirit, a solitary individual in quest for another truth, that explores the world with open eyes and mind, to understand the flaws of what he sees outside but also in him. Rousseau declared that the “vagabondage” was a wonderful tool for knowing yourself better, and how to deal with your emotions and thoughts:
 
“Travels push the natural on his way and achieve to make a man, good or bad. Whoever comes back from roaming the world, comes back the person he will always be for the rest of his life.”
Emile – Jean Jacques Rousseau
 
We are far here from the goals of the first travelers, who were usually really rich, from the Roman Empire. Traveling in boats, on the Mediterranean, their trips were reserved for the elite of the Empire and were mostly leisure.
Same during the Middle Age,  when the nobles and clerical part of society would go through massive trips, crusades and pilgrimages, or merchants to open new roads for their exotic products and spices… Going out of your own country will be until after the war, reserved for the privileged of western society. We might see here the first big difference between vagabonds and…tourists! The term “drifter” appears and it’s E.Cohen in 1972 for his sociologic categorization of tourists, that created it.
 
For the rest of traveling’s history and chronology, I invite you to consult two really great books about the Evolution of Tourism through the age that you will find in the bibliography at the end of this book.
 
But to link the origins of “solo-traveling”, in rough conditions, and to bring it to the actual backpacking, we have to talk about some popular literature references that listed “adventure” and “travel” among people’s fantasies.
And how to talk about that without talking about London and Kerouac?
 
Literature and pop culture references
JACK LONDON (1876–1916)
“He knew full well, from his Spencer, that man can never attain ultimate knowledge of anything, and that the mystery of beauty was no less than that of life – nay, more that the fibres of beauty and life were intertwisted, and that he himself was but a bit of the same non understandable fabric, twisted of sunshine and star-dust and wonder.”
― Jack London, Martin Eden
 
This famous adventurer, had what we can call a tough start, with a complicated family situation (his dad never recognized him and his mother had some mental health issues), leaving school at 14 and starting all the most bold jobs in San Francisco Bay: oysters poacher, sailer on a seal hunting expedition, factory worker…He will also get 30 days in prison for…vagrancy!  All of that before even being 20 years old!  1896 is the start of the gold rush and he will be, as a wanderer of course, one of them, building himself an even stronger adventure spirit. 
To get his entire life story, which is incredible, don’t hesitate to immerse yourself in his books or even one of his biographies like:  “Jack London, an American Life” from Earle Labor.
One of the concepts that will start to gain some popularity, thanks to his book “The Road”, is the train hopping. Becoming a new trend nowadays, it was used by vagabonds back then to cross the USA illegally in shipments trains.
 
I invite you to read “The Road’ and “Martin Eden” to understand better the impetuosity of the wanderer, and the rejection of the classic westerner model. A must have for every true wanderer.
 
KEROUAC (1922–1969)
 
 
Another precursor of “the road movies kind of life” is the most famous KEROUAC. 
A cynical dreamer, who shared a journey with Neal Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg and Williams Burroughs and created the most famous wanderer book : “On the road”. A book that he will write in 3 weeks on a paper roll of 36 meters! He will be forced to work again on it, and “make it softer” to be published 6 years later.
Kerouac became the godfather of the beatnik generation that spread through the US in the 50’s.   This movement pleaded against all sorts of war but especially the Vietnam one, promoted sexual freedom, and will become  an incredibly important artistic and cultural movement that will lead to some major changes in US