Ask Cancuk about backpacking/independant travel.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

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i don't understand people walking around with those gigantic backpacks. I think you can fit three or four people in there. Do you use one of those?

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What don't you understand?

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Wtf it is that you guys have inside of there? Ive done some backpacking and I just used a regular sized backpack from high school.

here is an example http://www.flickr.com/photos/ongaein2/90392395/ but the ones I see people with usually are bigger than this and go about a foot over their head.

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As I've said, a lot of people bring way to much [censored], but even sooo... think about any [censored] that you're going to want for a year.. or even 6 months, through multiple climates in lots of cases.. and then try nad put your whole life into a backpack.. there will probably be a lot of [censored].

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this is another thing i don't get about backpackers. its like you guys want to visit as many places as possible in as little time as possible. i guess if you are short on money or going to college you don't have the time to stick around, but it seems like 2 things are missing from your travel experience

1. you have no contact with locals, because you are always leaving next week so you spend all your time with white people.

2. you are always going to be seeing the touristy sides of places. in my experience, you arrive in a destination and then it takes awhile to find all of the cool places that tourists don't know about - this again comes from making friends w/ locals or doing your own investigating which obviously takes more then 3 days. your statement about thailand being a tourist trap seem to highlight this. if you are a tourist, then of course its going to seem like a tourist trap. thats because you go where all the other tourists are going.

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I think both of these statements are pretty broad, blanket statements.

I usually stay as long as I want in any place. If I like the "feel" of a place, i'll stay there for an extended period. If I dont, then i'll probably leave pretty quickly. I really try to find cool areas of places and very rarely go to any "tourist attractions" inless they're something I really want to see, or supposed to be "unmissable". Do I get out of one city as much as someone who lives there for a year? Of course not, but I get out as much as I want/can in the areas that I like and want to see.

I don't think I ever called Thailand a "tourist trap", and if I did that's not really what I meant. I only spent about a month in Thailand, and the only places that I actually liked were Bangkok and Chang Mai, spending about 10 days in BK and a week in Chaing Mai. The thing I didn't like most about Thailand was the tourists/backpackers. It seemed to me like every backpacker was pretentious about all this "3rd World Travelling" they were doing here on Koh San Rd, and the "culture" they were getting by paying thai chicks to [censored] them. In the south I didn't have the time to find a secluded beach, and just went to Koh Pha Ngan for New Years/Full Moon.

Again, I think you're making a broad statement saying we have no contact with locals. The whole idea of travelling is to experiance other cultures, atleast to me. What's the point of going somewhere like Thailand and eating banana pancakes the whole time? I'm not going to sit here and tell stories with examples, because that would look stupid, but this is certainly not true, atleast in my experiance.

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ok, i don't think we are really disagreeing. ive been living a thailand for awhile, so the word 'backpacker' carries the connotation of what you just described as your dislikes.