Boo to the Backpackers

Could somebody also tell these people that:

a) the countries they have visited have been seen by millions of people before them and they subsequently are not the only ones to have done/seen these things.
b) said countries are not dissappearing off the map and I therefore do not need to quite my job IMMEDIATELY and go see them.

and most importantly:

c) If they were that great what the f*ck did you come home for??????

sonners wrote:

c) If they were that great what the f*ck did you come home for??????

to regal us with their stories?

baztard wrote:

I'll make sure and PM you everywhere I go, let you know how I'm getting on you know, tell you a few anecdotal stories.

We should all PM pighead to tell him of our travelling adventures

I'm an old backpacker. Loved every minute of it.
Didn't do any touristy stuff though, didn't go up Eiffel, or Ayers Rock. For me the travelling was about working where I was and making friends. Not so much about riding elephants or diving in the Red Sea, although I'm sure that would have been amazing.

The worst thing is most of them never actually LEAVE HOME. They meet up with Tom from down the road in Thailand, move in with so-and-so in Sydney, get a job from their uncles wifes third cousin. It sickens me.

I know of people who went the whole way to Sydney to live with TWELVE other people who had grown up within a 10 mile radius of eachother in Wexford. I've seen pictures of Paddy's day, Xmas day, etc taken in Sydney but they may alwell have been taken in the local pub at home coz every person in the photos is a yellowbelly.

I have great respect for the people who do actually go and dont look back, no crying to mammy coz your lonely or your broke. Its a big bad world but you chose to go so f*cking deal with it. Ironically its usually the ones who dont say much about their time away that have the best stories and truely had amazing experiences.

Boo to the business world!

Gotta agree with you Pighead. The worst thing is when they come back moaning their pampered arses off because Ireland's like, sooooo dull now man, and because they can't find a job again after leaving their last one on two weeks notice to go look at elephants.

My Niece: I'm thinking of going to Australia for a year once I graduate
Me: Why Australia?
Niece: There's a really great Irish community there.

Ehem- you live in Kerry; I'd imagine there's a fairly substantial Irish community there too!

Pighead wrote:

Pighead would like to make it clear that hes no, stay at home, Ireland forever, old grumpyboots.

Yeah y'are.

If you're not that curmudgeonly old grump David Hanley who once wrote a famously cranky column about how terrible it was that so many noisy Spanish students used to come to Dublin in the summer then you're at least cut from the same begrudging cloth.

My backpacker days are long behind me but they were probably the best in my life.

I worked my way around Europe and the Middle East for a couple of years, no set itinerary, just up and leave when you hear a good report about a place or get a hankering to go somewhere, no responsibilities, no ties, no stress.

Maybe not the best life training, as some impertinent curmudgeon has said but that's the point. It's not "life" in all its humdrum, regimented, repetitive responsibility-laden drudge. It's being free to up sticks and head off where the sun is shinier or the grass is greener or things are just a little more exotic.

Of course you can do this when you're older and have a bit more money and you can stay in branded hotels that are the same the world over and fly in and out of airports that are exactly the same the world over but you don't get the same feel for travelling as you do overlanding in a truck or a ramshackle old train where you can actually see the terrain changing as you movefrom one region to the other.

You also probably won't get as much sex as a carefree young backpacker. Long hair, beard, smelly body and loads of road anecdotes---the girls just love it.

Some besuited twat with a trolley suitcase and a load of frequent flyer miles? Fugeddaboutit!!

Make the most of your youth while you still have it kids. Get on those backpacks and hit the road. Leave pighead to grumble about his mortgage payments and how his superior body hygiene counts for nothing at the end of the day.