Reminiscing about how backpacking travel used to be

I think that travel today, and in particular backpacking, has kind of been ruined by technology. For the most part these days I rarely run into people that I think are doing "true backpacking." This will come across as a "back in my day things were better!" sort of rant, but honestly, a large part of the allure and mystique of backpacking has been eliminated by smartphones and the ability to book anything at a moment's notice.

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Gone are the days of just booking a bus or boat and then arriving somewhere and simply figuring it out from that point forward. These days, people almost always have their accommodation booked long before they even arrive somewhere and while there is nothing wrong with that, it kind of eliminates a lot of the entire backpacking process.

I recall turning up at backpacker parts of cities all over the world and just wandering around to look at rooms and deciding on the spot about where you were going to stay. You could also negotiate the price and a lot of times that worked out in your favor as well as the hostel's. These days that "wiggle room" on the price of the room is simply ending up in the pockets of various online booking sites who charge 15-30% of the total price. I would be willing to bet that many of the hostel owners preferred it the way it was before as well because not only did they get to keep more of their room rate money, but they also could avoid people turning up with unrealistic expectations of a $10 room. When you wander and look at the room first before booking, you couldn't be disappointed about the room because you checked it first with your own eyes.

These days, cheaper hostels are starting to disappear around the world because people book a cheap room, then when they turn up and their cheap room turns out to be exactly what a cheap room should be, these people jump on TripAdvisor or other review sites and tear them a new one even though the room is exactly what you should expect for that price point.

Now we see most of the hostels are getting increasingly fancy with dorm rooms, which is something I kind of liked when I had to stay in one, but now that I am older, I tend to shy away from them.

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Also, because technology can answer all of your questions people are far less likely to reach out and talk to strangers. I often encounter people that have ear bud headphones in their ears at all times. A big part of the fun and adventure of backpacking is supposed to be that you don't know what the hell you are doing and the only way to solve this problem is to talk to other people, share a drink and the information you've gathered along the way, maybe get recommendations about what to do next, or get some tips about what to do and what not to do at your next destination. Hell, a lot of my best backpacking adventures were things I didn't even intend to do but decided at the last minute to do them because of random people that I encountered at various places.

These days it seems like people just immediately turn to their phones rather than even trying to talk to other folks. There are a lot of benefits to having a phone do the work for you such as avoiding ripoff taxis, but I feel as though almost all other aspects of travel have been downgraded because of online bookings. You have to be in a really off the beaten track place these days to not have some sort of digital thing that is going to do all the work for you and even though things like GPS are awesome, they totally eliminate the friendly banter that used to be really common between backpackers from all nations and age ranges, who would meet up and discuss stuff and end up forming lifelong friendships in the meantime.

For anyone traveling these days, you probably don't even know what a Lonely Planet book is, let along realizing how absolutely essential this book was for backpacking as little as 10 years ago.

Most of the places I travel to nowadays, I don't think the backpack itself is even necessary. Since most people have their accommodation, taxis, and flights pre-booked, they aren't even going to do a lot of walking around with their gear and therefore there isn't much reason to have a backpack at all.

I think that the younger travelers of the world are doing themselves a great disservice by taking on this new approach to travel and to make matters worse, a lot of countries are actually requiring you to have a booking before they will issue you a visa. That's another story entirely though.

I don't think there is any way to go back because recently, I turned up at a place without a booking and the staff were a bit confused and didn't know what to do in order to get me a room. They insisted that I go online and book a room even though I was standing right in front of them at that very moment. I had to get a manager involved to convince these people that if I go online, they are going to lose 20% and I would rather just give them the money in cash, face-to-face.

I don't like what backpacking has become and unfortunately I don't think that true backpacking can ever exist again. It's tragic, because the young people of today will never really know what it could be like.