Backpacking is now too simple, I liked it better before social media

I started traveling over the Southeast of the late 90s. After college, just a backpack, camera and adventure, I decided to investigate the Philippines – my birth country.

This early journey created my career as a travel writer and photographer and took me a few years later to move to Singapore, where the rest of the region was only a flight from Chang Airport.

Since then, I have collected travel stories that come from simple to superior and even strange.

In the 20s, during my first trip to Cambodia, I spent a fun “cultural exchange” evening with a group of tuk-tuk-drivers-drivers-we taught each other the toughest junk words to offer our mother tongues.

About a decade later, during the celebration of the Thingyan Festival-Myanmar New Year, I was about Trishaw because it drove through the joyful, cross-dressed revelers who drowned me with water hoses and sat on my cheeky hairy kisses.

The following year, in Bali, I was standing in the middle of the Perang API – the ritual fire war between the groups of the villagers who threw glowing coal to each other.

None of these adventures had been inspired by Tiktok and I had not used GPS there.

At that time, practical backpacks covered the “Lonely Planet” of the practical research-gender of the backpacks around the thick copy. I had to make a landline phone calls or write letters in the Internet cafes to reserve rooms. The flights were more expensive, so I often got around the land (or the sea, as well as the case).

I was on my way so much that I often reached my destination without plans and bookings.

These days, backpacking is a breeze with everything online – Google Maps shows us where to go, and sites like Expedia and Expedia and Expedia Booking.com We plan all the details in advance. It's all very comfortable – it can – too comfortable.

As a salty old highway, I would say that we have lost something in this period of hyper connection, in the era of radiation. The backpack bag in Southeast Aasia is not just what used to be. Here is what we are missing.

Serendipity benefits

Finding yourself was part of why backpacking was so fun. But if navigation applications are now available on everyone's phone, is anyone still wrong?

Transformative travel today is no longer the norm replaced by compulsory, compulsory meals and compulsory lists that bomb our social media streams. Indeed, looking at long lines waiting for exactly the same photo to be taken in so-called selfie places, you might think that the entire travel point is feeding all the important grams.

For the functionality of all these games, Google Maps and Street View have reduced the joy of discovery even on the simplest neighborhood walks.

My journeys then seemed raw and unfiltered. As the world was still largely unable to connect, we let our old -school backpackers show our curiosity (and our printed cards) show us the way.

Connecting to the locals

Your phone has a lot of travel advice from the crowd and approved by the influencer and often provide the same experience as everyone else.

Of course, some would say that this is a modern blessing – especially if you have a FOMO – but the touch of a friendly local kindness is nothing to make the experience unique.

Over the years, I have been sharing expropriation food, generous rides, witnessing gorgeous skills and even intimate cases. That was all because I dared to contact and communicate with the locals.

The cold efficiency of web -based booking, navigation and even lane applications has reduced the chances of making meaningful connections. I remember when I had just a smile and a curious question to break the ice.

Removal from everything

Today, however, we can travel solo, but constant connectivity means we are never alone. Not too long ago, it was a place for backpacks to be immersed in the place and it was often easy to just fall off the grid.

Today, passengers are more likely to update their Facebook, Instagram or Tiktok accounts than a handwritten magazine.

There are also fun vloggers who walk around with their streaming, selfie-sticked phones. Despite the fact that some travelers are physically far from everyone and everything we know, our mobile phones are always struggling with text messages, e -mail and social media updates.

Being part of the community

Once upon a time, an independent trip was a shared experience among the open community of backpackers. We would cross the highway and meet later at the nodes of travelers like Bangkok Khao San Road or Saigon Pham Ngu Lao Street. Here we would exchange travel stories over a cheap beer and trade in dog stores with dog ears.

Sometimes we would leave messages to new friends before moving to the next destination on the guesthouse bulletin plates. Previously, the source of so much fame is this IRL culture in the field of largely dissolved social media.

These days we could find our travel lovers on the web, but the things that at that time our travels were a sense of adventure, the readiness of connecting, and curiosity against various cultures against today's net disorder generation, card carriers.