Travelers Company

By Cheska Bennett
Special to The Lost Girls

There was once a time when backpackers around the world were considered people wishing to ‘find themselves.’ Backpackers were nomadic soles learning new cultures and for those left at home the idea was simply that these people were looking for something to help make them happy when they returned to their ‘normal’ life.

Nowadays, backpacking isn’t just a journey of self-discovery, it’s a fully fledged industry, evidenced wherever you turn. People go backpacking for many different reasons, which are becoming more and more relative to the negative aspects of a person’s life.

Quite often people go backpacking to ‘escape’ or ‘take a break’ from the life that they are currently living. Rarely these days do people up and leave their day-to-day lives to go backpacking when everything is just fine. Therefore, it could be suggested that backpacking is a form of therapy for people to ditch the negative in their own lives and search for happiness elsewhere. However, is backpacking an effective form of therapy or are backpackers simply leaving behind their stable-minded friends to let loose amongst other escaping individuals?

On paper there are some top reasons to go travelling and backpacking:

• To see the big wide world
• To experience new cultures and open one’s mind
• To learn new skills and languages

These are the reasons we give to people who are staying put, the people that are contented with their own lives and couldn’t possibly understand why you would throw caution to the wind and do something so radical as backpacking. These reasons give an air of purpose and credibility that will result in a response and continued conversation. If you turn to one of your friends and say, “I’m going backpacking because I hate my life” the inevitable response is that of an awkward silence and fake smile, followed by whispers of “why is she doing that?”

When you are actually backpacking, think about the reasons people give for going backpacking. Have you ever actually heard someone say to you, “I wanted to see the world, experience new cultures and learn new skills.” Nor have I.

Here are the top reasons that I have heard for people going backpacking over the last six years:

• Not sure if I want to go to university
• Finished university and do not want a job yet
• Haven’t got a clue what I want to do with my life
• I hated my job
• I was made redundant
• Something I needed to do before I got too old to do it
• I broke up with my significant other
• Unrequited love
• I hate my life – everything about it

Not that I really need to point this out, but none of these reasons are those of a happy sounding individual. If we think about it, these are all periods of people’s lives in which we experience poor mental health. “Mental health can be conceptualized as a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”

So what is it about backpacking that entices us rather than spending the money to lie on a professional’s chaise lounge? Is it the fact that we don’t have our own failures and negative aspects of our lives shoved in our face on a daily basis when we’re backpacking? Or is it because we can get away from the people who seem to be moving through life smoothly and hang out with other people who have been through similar experiences and will make us feel better about our life decisions?

Is it healthy though to spend time with other backpackers equally as mental as we are and how does it affect us when we finally return “home?” Post Travel Depression had to come from somewhere. If we have escaped the normal stresses of life and left them behind, what happens when we return and realize nothing has changed. Is this not how the ‘Travel Bug’ gets caught?

We get fed up with the glass being half empty and jet off to fill the glass to the brim only to return home and realize the glass is still half empty, so we head off again. A form of addiction maybe? What is it they say about addiction though, it stems from poor mental health. I’m sensing a pattern.

The next question is can backpacking be considered a valid form of therapy? “Cognitive therapy seeks to help the client overcome difficulties by identifying and changing dysfunctional thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. This involves helping clients develop skills for modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking, relating to others in different ways, and changing behaviors” (wikipedia)

A method of cognitive therapy is guided discovery. Backpackers leave the negative pressures and experiences from home and leave to try new experiences and develop a new journey, which can also be considered a guided discovery. Therefore, can it be argued that backpacking is a method of cognitive therapy? Possibly.

The other means in which we can consider backpacking as a form of therapy is through the plain fact that backpackers talk. A couple of drinks and you know more about a person in 2 hours than you do about half of your friends at home. Why do backpackers open up about personal secrets to people we don’t know, well, simply that reason. We don’t know them, in fact, if it all goes weird on us, we don’t ever have to speak to that person again. Now where else do people discuss their personal feelings about the hard times they have been experiencing – in a counseling session.

Backpackers are much more comfortable chatting to random strangers in a hostel than to a professional. Is it possible that backpacking is a more effective form of counseling? I guess the answers lie with each individual but if we face facts, hanging out with other head cases is much more interesting than hanging out with those who appear to have got everything right. So backpacking may not necessarily be a valid form of therapy but it most definitely is a more amusing form of therapy.

About the Author: Cheska is a keen traveler who has visited many countries in the past few years, including China and much of South America. She’s currently undertaking an internship for Nomads based at Nomads Auckland backpackers hostel, New Zealand

This article was reprinted with permission from Nomads Hostels.