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What advice would you give a new backpacker?

I'm on my first trip through Europe currently and was curious about any tips or ideas you might have.

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I'm going to assume you don't mean logistical tips.

This is going to come out as kind of flaky, but whatever: My favourite moments while travelling haven't been hiking the great wall or seeing the pyramids etc., but times when you're not really doing anything and you realize where you are and what you're experiencing... that didn't come out very clear... but, some of my favourite memories are those where nothing outstanding happened, I just realized how awesome it was that i'm doing what i'm doing:

eg: waking up in the Bolivian jungle, being the only white people around at some tiny nature reserve in the middle of nowhere...picking a couple of grapefruits off the tree outside and enjoying them while sitting in the sun and watching the baby monkey's in the tree's around me play.

Or hitchiking through Tibet only to get picked up by some Tibetan motorcycle riders who have to take side roads (which ended up being paths that crisscross a river) because they weren't allowed to pick up foreigners. They drove us for two days, so awesome.

And countless other stories like that.

So, my tip is to just go and experiance as much as you can. Don't just eat banana pancakes where all the other backpackers are going, or just take "tourist buses" or go wherever everybody else is going... it's funny how pretencious some backpackers get when they talk about "tours" and "organized travelling"... but a lot of them are doing the exact same thing, just without the guides: going from one town to the next with everybody else, seeing hte sites, then getting drunk.... and don't get me wrong, that [censored] is all fun, but I find that when i've been doing that for awhile I feel like i've potentially missed out on a bunch of stuff that would have much cooler... that's all.

/rambling