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Backpackers: The next generation?
How do backpackers of the baby boom cohort perceive of themselves? What
terms do they use for self-identification, and what reasons do they cite for their
accommodation choices? These become central findings of this research.
Backpackers’ travel motivations
Cohen (1973, p. 92) contended that “the drifter’s escapism is hedonistic and often
anarchistic”, while Vogt (1976) again softened this perspective by claiming that
wanderers travel to maintain contacts with friends and family, to gain personal
social recognition and prestige, and to quest after learning and personal growth.
Riley, offering a perspective almost 15 years later than Cohen’s initial
observations, rejects his early findings by asserting that her travelling peers “do
not drift aimlessly, … do not beg, and are no more hedonistic or anarchistic than
members of the larger western culture” (1988, p. 318, original emphasis). Rather,
she suggests that these travellers are primarily middle class, well educated, and
often professionally employed who, because they have chosen to travel for a
longer time, are by necessity living on a budget. Riley (1988) and Vogt (1976)
both state that these travellers are often at one of life’s junctures and wish to
travel before studies, career, marriage or family sidetrack them. Desforges (2000)
concurs, noting that for his research subjects, travel offers a bridge between their
past identities and their future selves.
Cohen (1973, p. 94), writing against a backdrop of extreme youth
disillusionment with the American war in Vietnam and the emergence of hippie-
counter cultures, hypothesised that “drifting is both a symptom and an
expression of broader alienative forces current among contemporary youth”. He
later softens his own position, suggesting in 2003 that, for contemporary
backpackers, though still critical of their own societies, “the overall degree of
their alienation has apparently diminished with time” (Cohen, 2003, p. 51). A
more recent large scale study supports this shift, contending that “motivations
stated by the respondents tend to emphasise a search for difference in other
cultures, rather than alienation from their own” (Richards & Wilson, 2004a, p.
28). However, Westerhausen (2002) disagrees, finding that growing numbers of
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