9 Types Of Backpackers You’ll Meet on Your Travels

After travelling on and off over the past few years I’ve come across a fair few hostels and the weird a wonderful types of travellers you find in them.
Here’s a list of some of the typical backpacker stereotypes you’re likely to come across in your travels at some point.
 

1. The Newbie

 
So these guys are fresh travellers usually freaking out at the whole shared mixed sex dorm situation and whether their belongings are going to get nabbed every five minutes. If they’re on their own they are usually really quiet or totally in your face asking questions about EVERYTHING. It can be daunting at first, so cut these guys some slack.

2. The Forever Traveller

 
These people are pretty hardcore. The people I’ve met that have been on the road for a very long time, usually forming some sort of natural dread in their hair with numerous friendship bracelets and a cracking tan. Great story tellers and not a lot phases them.
 

 

3. The Party Animal

 
Now I like my sleep and I don’t drink so I don’t really empathise with these guys especially when they come in at silly o’clock and bang and crash and talk REALLY loud and then drunk snore the rest of the night so no one else can sleep. Once they’re asleep it’s not so bad it’s when they bring a friend back or a “night friend” and attempt to get it on quietly so no one else can hear, but we can hear EVERYTHING.
 

4. The Flashpacker

 
For those that don’t know what one of these are, they’re the travellers that like to live a little luxury when travelling. Usual long with an enormous amount of luggage and freak out at things like icky bathrooms and cranky bunkbeds. I think we all have a little Flashpacker in us. I have definitely sacrificed space in my bag for my hair dryer and a few girly products.
 

5. The Creep

 
You’re sharing dorm rooms with complete strangers you don’t know from all different walks of life around the globe. You’re bound to find a few odd ones. But I’m talking about the creeps that stare at you as you sleep and awkwardly touch you around the waist as they walk passed. I mean my boyfriend was stood right there! Not cool.
 

6. Sleeping Beauty’s

 
We all love a lazy day here and there. I mean having the time of your life can be exhausting so you can expect days where you don’t really do much at all apart from the basics of eating and sleeping. But when people spend days on end asleep and not leaving the dorm and seeing what’s out there I start to wonder why. Unless you’re sick then that’s totally fair but come on guys, we didn’t pay a lot of pennies to come to Australia to lay in bed all day.
 

7. The Overly Friendly Tag-along

 
Being a lone traveller must be hard at times. I mean, I’ve done it for bits of my travels in other parts of the world and its definitely tiring having to make an effort to make friends all the time. I’ve met some really lovely people and we invite them out with us when we can but someone’s you get people wanting to tag along all the time and sometimes you have to politely hint that you want some time just you and whoever you’re travelling with.
 

8. Travelling Families

 
The usual clientele in hostels you would think are young-ish lone backpackers, couples or groups traveling together. Unless you’re staying in a resort type place it’s fairly unusual so see families with children in hostels considering a lot of them have an over 18 policy. So when a friend of mine was staying in the same hostel as I was in Sydney and I can to her dorm room, I was quite surprised to see the other 5 beds in the 6 bed dorm taken up by a whole family.
How awkward for my friend!

Im sure many of you will be able to relate to some if not all of these at some point in your adventure.

Happy travels, Laurie.

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