Backpacking

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Nebulous

Nebulous

Hakuna Matata
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Have you ever been backpacking?

Is backpacking generally something for younger people?

Do you think backpacking is done only by those with little money?

How do you think backpacking around the world would change a person?

white sands travel GIF by Melly Lee
 
I backpacked through the Norwegian Highlands when I was 18. Took the train there from Germany and then walked up the mountain. Once a day we might have met another person, otherwise, it was very still. We washed up in the brooks, just with plain soap, and I remember well how much I felt like a polluter, watching the soap destroying the crystal-clearness of the water.
 
Not since I was in Scouts. I like hiking but I suspect that putting several pounds of gear on my back would not enhance that experience at this point in my life (bad back).
 
I have done some walking in my younger days. At night we stayed in Youth Hostels, that were all over the UK at that time. Since coming to Canada I have done day hikes only. It has never appealed to me to carry everything on my back.
One of my grands does backpacking - not a rich person by any stretch of the imagination. One does have to have sufficient money to obtain the gear needed. So far he hasn't walked a huge distance daily. He just wants to get into some real peace and quiet and rely on himself to be safe and comfortable.
I can't imagine backpacking around the world!
 
Have you ever been backpacking?
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Nope

Is backpacking generally something for younger people?
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Well they have more stamina so they'd enjoy it more over an older person who will be tired and more prone to injury.

Do you think backpacking is done only by those with little money?
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I suppose so. Its a poor mans vacation. :P
...but not necessarily

How do you think backpacking around the world would change a person?
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Maybe not change them, but give them a better perspective and more knowledge on different cultures and environments.
 
It is an exercise to carry a tome and beer into the trees in the back yard ... I feel blessed to have such wilderness space as somewhat wild ... there is a vicious groundhog back there .. said to bring up light form classic burials from time to time ... bits, pieces, shards and chits ...

Profound excavator ... we give them credit!
 
My backyard is more than somewhat wild, as well. There are escaped herbs fighting with beautiful peonies, several currant bushes almost choked by virginia creeper, then hops, and rhubarb, and wild grape, and burdock, and nettles, and goutweed. There used to be some grass.

My son has done a lot of hitchhiking from place to place, with most of what he needs on his back: tarp, sleeping bag, water bottle, a few clothes, including a rain poncho with hood, an important book, pref paperback, some things to charge things with, some minimalist eating/cooking supplies, mug, cutlery, small pot. Bit like backpacking except that you can more easily cover more distance. And he'd always be poor, but he'd buy the odd coffee, panhandle a bit in places amenable to it, eat free food wherever possible. He knows how to look for the shelters, and the churches with outreach. And it's still a bit of a young person's game. You have to walk a fair bit, sleep rough - often, and carry the necessities of life on your back which is hard on your back.

(When I took BetteSon home to Salt Spring, fall camping, a few years ago, I found it difficult to carry the necessities of life for two in a full sized SUV, but you do need to bear in mind that my necessities comprise, among a lot of other stuff, three queen-sized feather pillows.)
 
BetteTheRed said:
My backyard is more than somewhat wild, as well. There are escaped herbs fighting with beautiful peonies, several currant bushes almost choked by virginia creeper, then hops, and rhubarb, and wild grape, and burdock, and nettles, and goutweed. There used to be some grass.

My son has done a lot of hitchhiking from place to place, with most of what he needs on his back: tarp, sleeping bag, water bottle, a few clothes, including a rain poncho with hood, an important book, pref paperback, some things to charge things with, some minimalist eating/cooking supplies, mug, cutlery, small pot. Bit like backpacking except that you can more easily cover more distance. And he'd always be poor, but he'd buy the odd coffee, panhandle a bit in places amenable to it, eat free food wherever possible. He knows how to look for the shelters, and the churches with outreach. And it's still a bit of a young person's game. You have to walk a fair bit, sleep rough - often, and carry the necessities of life on your back which is hard on your back.

(When I took BetteSon home to Salt Spring, fall camping, a few years ago, I found it difficult to carry the necessities of life for two in a full sized SUV, but you do need to bear in mind that my necessities comprise, among a lot of other stuff, three queen-sized feather pillows.)
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Imagine such fluff when supposedly roughing it!
 
BetteTheRed said:
I am a soft, spoiled woman, whose idea of nature is lying in a comfy bed in 600 thread count sheets, and 7 pillows, with my back door open to the backyard, and being serenaded by cardinals, crows and finches.
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For a soft person you seen t take to things that some find hard to take ... one of our friends is terrified of birds ... perhaps due to Hitchcock an Djinn Croe ... the code shift? Mutilation of the wee stuff? Nothing left by feathers ... best being a croe, cuss, as tough to cook ... nothing else relates in those that didn't observe much while passing over and through reality ... fantasies tend to overwhelm ... reality is either out or poorly illustrated ... delusion?

People love delusionary material ... I don't need t name examples of unbelievable 's ... something to chip away at ... as difficult to take ... what some people believe light and balanced! Brutality is the best show for raising hormones ... isn't that spectacular?

Thus the need for large mattresses ...
 
Nebulous said:
Have you ever been backpacking?
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I have hiked with a backpack
Longest was 12km switchback up mountains
Nebulous said:
Is backpacking generally something for younger people?
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Backpacks are so good now. Small and compact and lightweight is possible. As are hiring young, virile men
Nebulous said:
Do you think backpacking is done only by those with little money?
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Not at all. Tho that is a guess
Nebulous said:
How do you think backpacking around the world would change a person?

white sands travel GIF by Melly Lee
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Che Geuvara completely changed his life when he saw the insane poverty in his country

Travelling broadens...esp outside of onez comfort zone and country...one gets exposed to other social norms and cultures and etc
 
Can one walk through extreme poverty and be insensitive accorsing to the rule that one should know not? Thus the dearly departed due to what was deficient somewhere ...

But a monomer is not allowed to say that ...
 
My brother and I did moderate backpacking in our twenties and thirties, no more than two nights. Thirteen years ago, my younger daughter, my son, and I did an overnight hike to Pickle Jar Lakes in the Kananaskis. While son and I were setting up camp, daughter went for s hike which included climbing a steep slope to a viewpoint well above the Lakes. About eight or nine years ago I started what was supposed to be about a 9 day hike from Kananaskis Lake to Sunshine. Did about 10 km the first day and almost collapsed. After about 2 km and about a 200 or 300 m elevation gain on the second day. I said good bye to my brother in law, turned back, gave some of my provisions to another hiker, left some food in the metal storage cabinets at the campsite, and made the best time I could to the Lake, found a pay phone, and phoned my wife to come and pick me up. No cell phone coverage. No more overnight backpacking since. Just day hikes.
 
I have done lots of day hikes in my younger days. Much of it in Kananaskis, Banff and Jasper Parks. We aimed at 10-15 kms a day. Yes, modest backpack were carried. More recently hubby and I camped and did some walking at Grassland NP. I loved the look of the wide openness but also found it a bit intimidating somehow. However, it was the heat that did as in!
 
Out on foot on the prairie can induce either a feeling of being embraced by the land or swallowed up by the land. Because it is always rolling plains, under the right light, it can also cause a bit ot motion sickness. When we moved from forest to prairie in 1992, the feeling was being embraced and connected and it felt good. Forests can produce a feeling of separation from the land on which the forest grows because the forest hides the shape of the land.
 
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