What Type Of Traveller Are You?

I love to watch people. I do it at home, sitting in a cafe for example, and I do it while travelling. I found Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand, to be one of the best places to indulge in my hobby. You just sit down in a restaurant with a chilled beer and watch the world pass by. There’s Israelis with dreadlocks and wearing bandanas, English burnt by too much time in the sun and too little sunscreen, Swedes, tanned a dark brown in their boardshorts and cultivating that surfers look, German tourists trying to blend in to the whole traveller scene and in between them all left over hippies on a short visit from the last full moon party in Goa. Nowadays, you can actually interchange all those nationalities. The country-clichés are slowly disolving I think, but there are still different types of travellers:

1. The Minimalist

   This type is not that common really. Some of them just travel with like a daysack, that contains a toothbrush, a shower gel, a sarong, a spare change of clothes (so, 1 t-shirt and a pair of shorts) and a battered paperback-copy of ‘the songlines’ by Bruce Chatwin. They don’t really need a guidebook, cause there’s always someone around with a Lonely Planet. They just ask, have a look what’s in the new version of the guidebook and decide to head in the different direction to what is hailed as the new hot backpacker destination.

2. The Tourist

   This type carries with him at least 2 different guidebook, just in case the first one doesn’t cover everything. You can usually see them walking around with a purposfully gait. This is a traveller on a mission. So much to see and so little time. If you haven’t seen all 483 temples (just a rough estimate) of Bangkok you might as well not have gone at all. Funnily enough, most of the time they are travelling either alone or in company of another ‘tourist’-traveller.

3. Inspector Gadget

   He’s got all the latest toys. Ipod, a super thin laptop, a PDA and a mobile. An extra small video recorder and a 20 megapixel camera and he’s not afraid to use any of it. Can be mistaken for ‘The Bulky One’ quite easily.

4. The Explorer

   This one is quite obvious. He loves the color khaki. Everything’s khaki. The short-sleaved shirt, the shorts (always with a crisp ironed crease) and the backpack. Then there are these huge trekking boots, even in a hot climate. There has been rumours as well that some explorers carry a big jar with dust, that is used to give them this just-came-out-of-a-pyramid-and-found-the-treasure look.

5. The Hippie

   Whenever you hear the sound of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix or Pink Floyd, chances are a ‘hippie’ traveller is not too far off. You can see them from quite far away. The long hair, the jesus-sandals and all those vivid and bright colored clothes make you think you have an apparition in front of you. Quite often, in Asia at least, when you look closer, they really are from the flower power ages. Probably came to Asia in the 60s or 70s on the hippie trail, burned their passports and never made it back. Then there’s the younger ones wishing they’d have been on the trail and now make up for it by dressing the part and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

6. The Bulky One

   It doesn’t matter if he’s on a one week all inclusive package tour or travelling independantly for half a year. He always travels with a 120 liter backpack, stuffed full with everything he really needs and a lot of useless stuff. He packs for 14 days, so that’s 14 t-shirts, 14 boxershorts, 14 condoms (he wishes…), 14 of everything, except maybe towels or shoes. He can only be identified when arriving or leaving a place.

7. The Beach Bum

   He/she knows only one way to dress. Boardshorts commando style, a sleeveless t-shirt and flip flops (preferably blue/white). Quite often they have dreadlocks and polynesian tattoos cover his/her arms, legs and/or back.

8. The Girly

   This is more or less a female version of the Bulky One. The only difference, except for the sex and the types of things she packs, is that she is usually travelling with her boyfriend. Said boyfriend then has the honor of carrying her huge backpack, filled with all her cosmetics and shoes. She obviously then looks lovingly after his mini backpack.

9. Mr/Mrs Normal

   Here we have the greenhorn. He or she stands in between all those weirdos mentioned above and wonders if they actually know how absolutly ridiculous they look and/or behave. Mr/Mrs Normal can’t be seen often, or should we say for a long time, as they tend to change into one of the other types quite quickly. After their first arrival, they lock themselves into their guesthouse rooms for a few days and then decide that if you can’t fight the other types (and there’s just too many of them) then you have to join them…

I used to be Mr Normal paired with about a third of the Bulky One. I then evolved to a mix between the Minimalist/Explorer, before settling for the Beach Bum (without the hair) with a touch of Inspector Gadget (my laptop plus all my dive stuff). So, what kind of traveller are you?

Tags: Traveller, Type, Watching

Most of the time Boris can be found swimming with the big fish or chilling in his hammock in some far-away region of earth. Once he chewed some betel nut...

Posted in Articles, My Pick on 20 March 2007 | Comments Feed