A common phraseology helps backpackers bond as a group and a community. As increasing number of Backpackers have started to visit Pakistan and many Pakistanis have started travelling. Here are few fun jargon used by Backpackers to get you familiarised.
Backpacker:
- This is the basic most common definition of anyone who travels the world independently and on a budget, usually with the eponymous backpack over their shoulders. It can also be interchangeable with traveller.
- A term used almost exclusively by Americans to describe those hiking or camping in the wilderness, despite the fact that a) those people are generally already known by the terms wilderness hikers or campers or similar, and b) the ‘independent world traveller’ definition of the term (above) is widely accepted and used by most of the rest of the world and by the entire gap year industry.
Backpacker ghetto:
An area of any given city or country that has an abundance of cheap hostels, a touristy market, a lot of bars and a heavy traveller infrastructure and is full of first time backpackers for this very reason. Khao San Road in Bangkok is an infamous example.
Border run:
This describes a situation where a backpacker will get a cheap return flight, train or coach ticket to another country for a couple of days before returning to the country they were in to begin with simply to extend their visa. Also commonly referred to as a visa run.
Career Break:
This has become increasingly part of the backpacker vernacular over the last decade as increasing numbers of professionals or those with long term careers take extended time off from their jobs or careers to go on a gap or snap year. Sometimes the term career break is used interchangeably with sabbatical.
Couchsurfing:
Couchsurfing is a method for backpackers to gain free accommodation in a hosts home, and in turn hosting other backpackers in their own house when they aren’t travelling. Has fallen in popularity in recent years by the Couchsurfing app.
Culture Shock:
Culture shock is the disorientating feeling some travellers get 12 – 24 hours after riding in a new destination and experiencing a range of sights, sounds, smells and new surroundings that are completely unfamiliar and outside of their comfort zone. It can affect individual travellers very differently with symptoms ranging from disorientation and homesickness to panic attacks.
Flashpacker:
This is a backpacker who travels in the same independent way as any traditional backpacker, but has a higher than average budget and stays in mid range to nice hotels and travels in more luxury and comfort.
Gap Summer:
Often more commonly referred to as a snap year, the gap summer is generally used by college or university students travelling during the month or two month summer break in between years, or just before starting university.
Gap year:
The traditional year out taken by many backpackers to go travelling.
Gringo trail:
The traditional backpacking route through Latin America where the same countries or places in no particular order are visited by a constant stream of backpackers.
Itchy Feet:
Not a communicable disease caught from the shared shower in a grotty hostel but the irresistible and often undefinable urge to travel the world that affects most backpackers at some point.
Off the Beaten Track:
This isn’t a reference to some hardy back to basics camping adventure, this simply refers to the places many long term backpackers head to that tend not to have many – if any at all – other backpackers there, instead of heading to the usual places everyone else heads to.
Reverse Culture Shock:
Pretty much the same thing as culture shock, but this happens when a traveller returns home from a long trip and finds it difficult to fit back in to old routines and western society again. Symptoms can include trying to barter for a bottle of water in the supermarket or accusing the bus driver of ripping you off.
Round the world (RTW):
Pretty much what it says, this describes the traditional gap year backpacking trip, often – but not always – involving a single ticket with numerous stops on various continents. Can refer to the journey or the type of aeroplane ticket bought.
Snap year:
The increasingly common shorter version of a gap year, often between 1 to 6 months and taking in one country or one region.
Taxi Mafia:
Found in many regions across the world, this unscrupulous group of conmen work as taxi drivers, ignore all laws and regulations that state they should use their meters, and instead collude to charge every backpacker they see at least five times the going rate or as much as they think they can get away with. They will use every excuse under the sun to try and not use their meter. Under no circumstance should you use these taxi’s.
The Bible:
A nickname for a guidebook, typically Lonely Planet but is sometimes used for Rough Guides too. Becoming less and less popular now but is still used by young, new first time backpackers who follow the ‘where to go and stay’ sections in these books slavishly (hence an overabundance of first time backpackers in the same hostels which invariably jacks their rates up). Not as popular as they used to be.
Tourist Trail:
Simply describes places or things that most tourists and backpackers head to see, the major tourist draws like the Pyramids or the Statue of Liberty.
Tout:
Otherwise known as a conman, rip off merchant or many other unsavoury expletives, these people descend on backpackers just arriving in a new destination like locusts, attempting to divert them from where they need to go and force them into paying way over the normal price for something. Often work with a number of local scams or in tandem with disreputable local businesses or the taxi mafia.
Voluntourism:
A term used to describe the for profit industry that has exploded in recent years, with profit making companies taking advantage of naïve travellers desire to help or ‘give something back’, by offering expensive volunteering packages alongside their RTW tickets. Packages of ‘volunteering’ in animal sanctuaries, teaching English abroad or building a school/well/ditch in a local village are common. They often cost a lot of money and have questionable benefit to the local population or the cause they are claiming to help. This industry is in no way to be confused with genuine NGOs, not for profit agencies or skilled volunteers who give their time and money to genuinely help a cause.
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