Solo backpacking around the world

There is now a week left for the big departure to do the long-awaited world Tour in fact it’s not quite everything but I think I’ll get to know a good part of it, and I want to do it again backpacking and solo.

Yes, because me I travel alone and I’m one of those people who are defined and define themselves with pride Backpackers that is, backpackers, on the road or in other words with little money but a lot of time available.
Backpackers are immediately recognisable, they are the ones you see on the streets of cities, on buses, on trains or at airports loaded like mules, sneakers dangling from the backpack, sleeping bag and even if you don’t see it…. with little money!

Ma what it means to travel as a backpacker? And especially what it means to travel as a solo backpacker?

Traveling backpacking means giving up the comforts of 4-star resorts and hotels, and even 3-star ones to instead sleep in hostels you share your room with other people like you who have been traveling for months, you use shared bathrooms, you travel on public transport reducing air travel to a minimum, we eat in local restaurants without looking for the ones that are in vogue.
But as uncomfortable and unattractive as this way of traveling may seem, in reality it is anything but.
In fact, backpacking allows you to stay on the road for long periods, you learn how to manage your finances and optimize your budget. Yes, we try to spend as little as possible but we live there freedom to the nth degree.
There are no organized tours, there are no itineraries, there are no stops to necessarily make except because we want it.

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Read also: A year of solo travel. Thoughts and reflections of a backpacker

There are those who say that traveling as a backpacker is a philosophy of life rather than a way of travelling, I don’t know this, or rather I don’t know what exactly can be meant by philosophy of life.
Per me philosophy of life it means setting one’s life and living it in relation to the ideals that animate our daily actions. Travelling, on the other hand, is a limited part of my existence, it is a here and now, which will end but which has given me special years and which has refined and radically changed my vision of life and which above all has made me understand what the priorities are, the mine obviously.

I am a free spirit, I always have been and by travelling, moving away from the usual daily tram-tram and the daily stress of home-office-home and if I can make it to the gym, I remembered that my freedom and independence are worth more than any job behind a desk, which I don’t like even if well paid.
I am not a supporter of “heart and a hut”, I say heart because with hearts things get a little complicated, but I believe that living following my passions and doing the work I like from any part of the globe makes me happier than €2500 a month in a gray and rainy city or one without stimuli of any kind.

I’m a backpacker, I climb mountains and volcanoes or dive into the most beautiful seas on earth, I travel being careful about my budget, I couchsurf, I mix with the locals, I have the time to learn a new language and practice it and I do all this alone .
Maybe that’s what’s even scarier than going on the road for long periods. The idea of traveling alone is scary, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve already done it or if it’s the first time.
Simply the idea of going towards the unknown and moving away from your certainties, in my case few but still certainties, is scary and it wouldn’t be normal not to have it.

But in reality in my experience I understood that traveling alone amplifies not only the sense of freedom that you feel in experiences of this type but forces you in some way, and I assure you that it is something that just happens, to socialize to the point that I think I’m not exaggerating if I say that you are never alone.
How many people do you meet, how many do you talk to and come up with new ideas, how many could create beautiful friendships which in my case have become work collaborations.

When you travel alone you become your own guide and take on your own responsibilities.
You make the travel plan, you decide whether to stay or go, whether to sleep or go on a hike, whether to go out in the evening with some of your new friends or read a book for hours in a hammock without ever being disturbed.

The fear is healthy helps you do things with caution and attention and is a symptom of a great event that is about to happen and that is about to upset your life and in many cases change its direction.
And so I now find myself 9 days before the big departure, just two months after the return of the previous trip, and I’m scared! Every now and then I wonder why I wanted to do it again. But then there are days that I wake up and look at the calendar bursting with happiness for this other adventure that awaits me and which is certainly holding a thousand surprises for me.

To have this life experience, because that’s what it’s about, you don’t need a lot of money, you just need a little courage, the ability to adapt and the availability and desire to open up to new worlds and welcome them.

This is what it means to travel as a backpacker and do it alone.