backpacker parents

while i was in college, and after i graduated, i wanted to backpack in europe. but the reality of the situation was that that was for the rich kids and i needed to work to afford to stay in school. there was no eurail pass for me, i had no fort lauderdale or cancun during spring break, i went home and worked to help pay for the semester that was half over. graduation day came and i stayed at work to do a double shift rather than crossing the stage with my classmates. working double shifts all through college was the way i had afforded to get this far, it seemed like the right thing to now that i had 10 years of debt to pay off once i graduated.

i was asked about my previous travels this week. had i done the backpacking in europe? why do i travel with a backpack now, when i can afford to pay for the five star hotel? today the cost of the holiday is more time than money. i plan trips on weeks that have holidays embedded within them, the time away from the office is much more of a challenge than the cost of the trip. the desire to carry a backpack and stay in "local" accommodations rather than yet another hilton is why this is vacation, i need to get away from the business travel environment.

but i am not the standard backpacker. i seem to have done this backwards, i delayed the backpacking until my back actually hurts from carrying the bag. travel in my 20s was restrained by the desire to pay off the loans needed to fund the parts of education i could not cover with double shifts. travel in my 30s was restrained by commitments including not taking days away because they were non-billable. travel in my 40s, well this has almost become a survival act. the reaction to an always on lifestyle and the need to be anonymous.

as i have been considering this, i have noticed the number of backpackers who are all around me this week. there is a certain flavor to the type, they are dominantly white, educated, literate and in their mid to late 20s. there are some in their thirties, but the over 40 crowd is limited. many have long histories of travel, the longest i have heard was 18 months of travel over 4 continents, with another 8 months to go before landing back in new york for a wedding. how does someone take 26 months out of their life and travel the world? i am asking that hoping how to figure it out for myself more than as a rhetorical question. where is the funding coming from? is it too late for me to be adopted by these parents?

when my older son was 10 or so, he asked me about eurail and suggested we do it together. i thought this was a great idea, one i honestly would not have come up with myself. i looked at tickets, considered the route through europe and presented the plan to his mother. the conversation ended abruptly, the trip was never taken, an opportunity was lost, one i wish i could go back and reclaim. i wonder how life would have been different if we had taken this trip. how would i be different?

as i look at the backpackers around me, i see them in the future. i see the house, and the volvo. i see the business they are running and the clients they need to keep happy. i see the children they are raising. i wonder if their spouse will also be a backpacker, or if they will be someone who orders roomservice and has never worn the same shorts for a week or shared a room with semi-strangers in a hostel.

i wonder when they will tell the children the stories of their backpacking past. i was almost 20 when i found out my father had gone to work in the caribbean for over a year. he never really told me the story other to say he had a great time. that is a side of my father i never knew existed, and i am sorry i will never know him at that time. will these parents be different? will they have pictures, blogs and facebook friends who drop in and tell the kids the story of a crazy night in thialand that mom has never mentioned? or will those memories be quietly tucked away under the adulthood that mom and dad take on? will the kids be given lectures on safety as they are carpooled from soccer to dance? will dad remember cambodia when he considers snooping in his daughters diary?

i talked to my younger son on the drive to the airport this week. i told him i was going to the mountains and hoped to piss over the border. i could hear him smiling as he laughed and called out to his mother to tell her about my plans. i could hear her adult reply to my childish plan. that made me smile.

backpacking is the 21th century version of hippy-culture. it's about the freedom to not shave, not get up in the morning, not go to bed at night if you don't want to. it doesn't matter if you smell a bit, if you have a stupid idea that you carry out or if you drink a bit too much.

what matters is that you find the time somewhere in your life to take an overnight train into the mountains, to look over the border and to know if you do want to let go, you can take a picture and share it with your children as a part of who you really are.

we are our past, and if we are really lucky, we are also our long scruffy futures.