Traveling is an inward journey but a journey you don’t have to take alone. While taking a trip with your family or friends, your options are pretty much bound, although one can always improvise which might include another family taking the same trip. However backpacking alone is a different tale and in my opinion is equivalent to the first day of school. The place is new and so will be the people there and despite all your stubbornness you are bound to crave human interaction, which most certainly can be good for your trip. Once during my drip to Bhutan, I remember sleeping at a shady place without anyone’s concern and also had a word or two with the residents of the place who didn't mind my invasion at all. I was too tired to let the situation confuse me. Things became clearer when a cop dragged me to the local police station where they interrogated why I was discovered at a brothel. Well things might not take such extreme turns when you set out but new, strange and weird people will always be a part of your trip. Let them in, because when you are on that train back home it is all about the stories you packed to tell your friends. You can always categorize these characters, whom you can find almost in all of your backpacking journeys.
THE HOME SICK ONE
The one who doesn’t quite grasp the concept of wanderlust and trying to find oneself in a foreign land. A fair warning as these people are prone to tears and might crave for a hug every now and then.
THE ONE WITH THE SELFIES
A personal worst and capable of getting on your nerves very soon. This is what your mom might had warned you to not be, the ambassador of the generation- X. Enjoy the place, breathe in all its glory and maybe capture a few memories from behind the lens, don’t turn the lens on yourself.
THE LAPTOP LARRY
Checking e-mails, highlights of the matches he misses and trying to plan the next day, which he eventually limits to his track pad. Be vulnerable, go out and experience what you wanted to from the moment you booked your flight.
THE SNUGGLE BUNNIES
You are trying to discover yourself, they are trying to find each other. The couple will tag along wherever the squad moves on to but rarely will use their tongue to convert noises to words. There is a possibility for the single dudes out there to regret the whole trip, whenever around them. In that case, GO GET SOME STRANGE or a cat.
THE LEECH
Travel budgeting is a very tricky thing and one might lack the skill, and instead of that awkward phone call back home they reside with freeloading. Be careful, it might start with gum and go as far as gadgets. You might never see your money as your acquaintance will last just till the last day of your trip.
