Whilst walking up the stairs I managed to over hear an interesting conversation between a group of young backpackers who were using a mobile device to look at somewhere to stay online…
“…hmmm I don’t know about that place, real travellers wouldn’t stay there…”
This short snippet of conversation bugged me, it opens up a barrage of questions including “what constitutes a real backpacker?” Did this odd group of people who didn’t even give us a hello when we entered the hostel count themselves within this select group? Did they not talk to us as they thought we did not?
Do they believe that because they wear wooly clothes, have the key cliche members of their group who have grown a god awful moustache and the other one who carries (but can’t play) a guitar that this allows them to enter the auspicious group labelled as “real travellers”?
To me a real traveller is a gypsy. So unless they come from gypsy heritage then they can try as hard as they like and grow as many moustaches as they like, but they will never be a real traveller.
Rant done. Phewf!