This is how I roll

I went on my first backpacking trip when I was 23. This was when I believed that if I could make enough money to travel, I would be okay. I was restless, idealistic and spending my paychecks to feed an addiction. For some people, it was alcohol. For others, designer bags, or gourmet cuisine. Mine was travel. I didn’t care about the details, the where and the how. The why was clear enough: independence, both physical and emotional. Even for just a few days, I had the final say on where to go, what to eat and what to spend my money on.

My first backpacking endeavor took me to India. I collected all the spoils from a year’s worth of freelancing and, disregarding the usual Southeast Asia itinerary (Backpacker 101 for most), went on a spontaneous three-week jaunt across the Asian subcontinent with a couple of friends. One was a local supermodel who fastidiously noted down every travel expense. The other was a snooty writer who wore felt fedoras, suede Tod’s lace-ups, and crisp white shirts rolled up at the sleeves. His idea of an adventure was afternoon tea at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai (the same one that was bombed in 2008) and drinking lassi from a clay tumbler in a random shop in Jaipur — sort of an Indiana Jones on Quaaludes.

We traversed India by rail, starting at Mumbai, going up north to Jaipur, Udaipur, Varanasi and then Delhi. Early on in the trip, an Indian friend told us that we could have flown in to our destinations but we figured India via its train system would be a more quixotic experience, something out of the pages of Alain de Botton’s commentaries. And yes, the musty bunk seats and dinner service, which included a choice of soggy sandwiches or air-packed samosas, justified why it was a lot cheaper than flying. 

The trains we took were similar to what the Whitman siblings took in Wes Anderson’s annotation on dysfunctional brotherhood, The Darjeeling Limited — but sadder. Apart from the lackluster on-rail service, the latrines made the toilet of the crappiest airline — when it’s nearing touchdown after a 13-hour flight — seem like the Four Seasons. But considering that we stayed in places where you had to bolt the windows whenever you were out of the room or asleep, else monkeys could stray in and steal your underwear (in Udaipur), or at the Tibetan colony, a sort-of refugee camp for escapees from China, in Delhi, these train travels became apt preludes and sympathetic footnotes.

Before India, I was already freewheeling on budget trips across the country. I spent weekends at nearby beaches with guy friends who, if they had a choice, would camp out on the sand with just a blanket and a pack of cigarettes. But having a girl in the group necessitated a bath and a toilet. Their gentlemanly nature got me the bare-necessity toilet bowl (I would have had to offer a novena for a lid and a flush), a moldy pail beneath a leaky faucet and a bathroom door made out of a rusting aluminum sheet.

I was also driving up to Sagada in a bouncy SUV. Those days, the only decent lodging was the venerable St. Joseph’s, that time still a rickety structure where floors squeaked, sheets were scratchy sheets and you had to heat water with those plastic cylinders that were considered technological bath breakthroughs back in the ‘80s. Anything goes, and I went along with it, clad in rubber Tevas and nylon drawstrings.

By the end of my India trip, I knew that the backpack way was not for me — and that I could never pull off “cool” with 30 pounds of unwashed clothing on my back. The next time I went on a relatively long trip, I packed everything in a roller suitcase.

This was in Morocco where, for three weeks, I was a traveler devoid of itinerary and a clue, i.e., I ended up sleeping on a two-inch-thick mattress on the floor of a very spartan room — it didn’t even have real windows; I spent eight hours in a bus with chickens and a colicky baby; and traveled from the city to the Sahara Desert, not knowing how I was supposed to get back. I was with another girl and we were very brave, especially after surviving taxi and horse carriage drivers who proposed marriage by asking how much we would cost in camel currency. (He reconsidered when we asked for 10,000 heads of the desert ungulate.)

The more I journeyed, the more I became hooked. But I was also growing disillusioned with shared baths and mattresses that smelled like discarded dentures. I was still relying on promo flights but started becoming more particular about my restaurant choices and shopping haunts. I was also traveling a lot for work, which offered stays in hotels that actually had elevators and Wi-Fi. (Those walkups in Morocco and Europe nearly crippled me). And really, I didn’t want a travel album that featured me wearing rubber sandals that translated “strappy” the way a Boy Scout learning his knots would.

And so began my introduction to the “bratpack” lifestyle: affordable travel without the embarrassment of schleppy footwear and bed bug bites. With enough planning and lots of networking, I realized I could spend a week in Paris without having to log onto hostels.com. Bratpacking is the baby of the Internet, coddled by Agoda, Orbitz, TripAdvisor and other travel sites that offer attainable luxury and market niche travel experiences.

I discovered vacation rentals: apartments in the heart of a destination that locals rented out to tourists for short stays. These were relatively cheaper than hotels (especially If you’re traveling in groups) and had kitchens that allowed me to stay in and cook instead of blowing money on heinous tips. I now also had the option to fly everywhere, thanks to mileage, and the shaky airline industry. Airlines were following the Ryan air route and were slashing down prices; British Airways has one-way flights from London to Schengen destinations for under 100 euros and, if you book months in advance, Virgin Air flies within the US for Manila-Boracay rates.

I also enjoyed walking around more — this time, laden with ideas and a map in my head, rather than a book that leads me to a place where only other backpackers hang out. Instead of relying on Lonely Planet, bratpacking sends you to places that your run-of-the-mill chipper tour guide wouldn’t necessarily recommend or even have access to. It looks to local guides such as Time Out and websites such as A Small World, where urbanites freely dish out the hippest and hottest in their home cities at a speed faster than you can get a cocktail in Sunset Boulevard. (If you’re chatty enough, they might even get you on the guest list.) Bratpacking will lead you to Soho during Sunday happy hour when the mojitos are free-flowing, instead of on a Friday night with other champagne-happy tourists; hanging out at a rooftop bar in Ansiang Hill rather than getting lost in Clarke Quay; Hollywood St. rather than Lan Kwai Fong; St. Germain and Le Marais and not Champs-Élysées.

When I started bratpacking, I didn’t get to visit the guidebook sites — until now, I couldn’t tell you how to get to Stanley Market in Hong Kong or Chatuchak in Bangkok. And I still haven’t been to the Statue of Liberty. (But after seeing the Eiffel, all these gargantuan monuments seem overrated.) I can tell you, however, where they have great reasonably priced lunch buffets in Central Hong Kong, how to shop for cheap designer pieces in New York, or where the Kaleidoscope Museum in Kyoto is. Bratpacking familiarized me with local life but still had me retaining my first-timer point of view. It made me realize that I was not just going somewhere, but actually staying, even for just five days.

I admit, I do miss backpacking. I miss walking around with nary a clue and only a sense of humor to show for it. Champagne buffets and city clubbing are all fun, but then so is walking all over Sao Paulo trying to find the right-sized Havaianas to bring back home. And nothing is as surreal as raising hell in a police station in Jaipur because some guy had sold me fake pashmina, or as magical as snuggling in a makeshift sleeping bag in the Sahara, waiting for the moonrise at 4 a.m.

I can say for certain that I will be avoiding shared baths and India’s railways from now on but I wouldn’t ask anyone to give up these experiences either.

Backpacking is a rite of passage, something everyone has to do, probably to understand why travel is essential. Bratpacking, on the other hand, makes you realize that there is more to a country than a hefty tome and cheap eats. If the backpack lifestyle sets you on your path, then it’s bratpacking that paves the way.

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