The Backpacker Lifecycle

From hostels to hotels. Backpacks to suitcases. Hitchhiking to guided tours. Through 20 years, and countries such as North Korea, Australia, France, Jordan, Rwanda, New Zealand, Japan, Peru and Antarctica, The Backpacker Lifecycle shares hilarious (and sometimes highly personal) experiences of travelling through different countries and different states of mind as the years go by. Simultaneously following the younger and older stages of a travel career, exploration is seen through the eyes of both a nervous twenty-year-old on his first trips after college, and a thirty-year-old backpacker trying to rekindle his jaded love of travel.

---EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 1---
The familiar smell of budget noodles boiling in dented aluminum pots became obvious as soon as I stepped through the front door. Hostels never change. A few travellers waited near the front desk, straddling backpacks between their feet. Another had fallen asleep in a corner lounge chair while hugging his closed laptop, unbothered by the abundance of well-travelled dirt between the cushions. A cracked guitar leaned against a book-swap shelf filled with outdated guidebooks, long since replaced by smartphones. Heavily accented conversation rang out from the communal kitchen. For at least a decade of my life, I wanted only to be in places like this. That era of exploration and self-discovery was now well behind me, but never far from my thoughts. And now I found myself back at a hostel, hitting reset and starting again. Inevitably. Despite the years of absence from backpacking, I still felt at home.