How To Tell Your Parents You Want To Go Backpacking

December 20, 2011 By

Are you about to plan a huge backpacking trip to Europe or Asia? Have you let your parents know about it yet.

It’s only natural for parents to show a little concern and be just that little bit worried when you head off into the world for the first time, I know mine were. Here are a few hints and tips to help the whole process of letting your parents know about your plans to travel the world go smoothly.

Dropping The Hint

If you already know you’re planning to go ahead with a trip after you finish school or whatever it may be, start dropping a few hints on the subject. Let them see your interest in traveling and other cultures and places, say that one day YOU would like to travel the world and see these things for yourself. Drop a few hints that you may be interested in taking a break after high school or university to travel.

Just ease them into it before you blast them with, ‘Okay, I’m off for a year to Europe. Bye!’.

Showing Your Passionate

Let them see your PASSION for traveling. You want to go backpacking, so it’s obvious that you’re interested in seeing new places and experiencing new things, let that passion shine through whenever you talk to them. Let them see you animated and excited about the trip and the places you will be going to. That enthusiasm is going to be hard for them to ignore!

Do you have an interest in writing or photography? Traveling and backpacking can ONLY benefit and expand that interest if you want it to – let your parents see that!

Give Them Role Models

Did your teacher or one of your parent’s good friends do a similar trip when they were younger? Well, look how great it turned out for them!

Show them some role model figures to you that have done something similar in the past and let your parents see how it benefited them.

Let Them See You Know What You’re Talking About

Show them you have some common sense, and that you’ve done a bit of research into the whole matter. Are you planning to work overseas? What countries do you want to visit? Do you know what sort of visa you are going to need?

What is your plan for money (if your plan was to ask them to fund your whole trip, you’re going to need to broach that subject at some point) – show some initiative and that this is something important to you.

If you do all of this and discuss all of these points, your parents should be more than happy to see you off on your big backpacking adventure!

Being a younger traveler myself, I’ve been through all of this before. Don’t sweat the small stuff, enjoy the whole planning process and the anticipation and build up to the trip will be something you remember for years to come.

This was a guest post from Tom at Active Backpacker – if you’re planning on backpacking through Europe or just after some general backpacking, check out his website: ActiveBackpacker.com.

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Backpacking Through Australia – Sydney

November 4, 2010 By

Backpacking throughout Australia is the dream of every gap year student. Even people who never had a chance to do this might return to it at a later stage in their life, when their kids have grown up and they take a few months off work in their mid forties.

Backpacking first of all is a very good way of keeping fit. You can take everything you need in a backpack and you either sleep in youth hostels or camping grounds/trailer parks. Backpacking is an extremely cheap way to travel. Most people spend a horrible amount of money on their plane ticket and their hotels and food, but if you go backpacking on your next holiday, then you can literally save heaps of money.

Sydney and its environs

When you’re backpacking Australia then you will most definitely stop in Sydney because it’s one of the most famous cities. It’s not the capital as many people think it is, but it is certainly one of the largest. Sydney has a very beautiful downtown area which is built around the famous harbor. The greatest landmark is the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was made famous in the Olympic Games and also at the turn of the Millennium fireworks. Other landmarks around Sydney are the Opera House, which resembles a fleet of ships with its sails; Taronga Zoo, which is a terraced zoo set in the hillside overlooking the harbor; the downtown area and the TV tower which offer stunning views of the city, the sea and the Blue Mountains.

Bondi Beach

When you’re done visiting Sydney then you’ll probably want to go and look at something new. One of the best things to see in Sydney or at least very close to it, is Bondi Beach. This stunningly beautiful beach with white sand and aquamarine blue water is just 7 kilometers east of downtown Sydney. It’s a very popular beach and is usually jam packed with tourists. The town has just about 10,000 people, but it does very well because of the tourism. Bondi Beach is famous because it is the landing site of the first Europeans to take Australia for the British Empire.

Bondi Beach is a very safe beach to swim in because the town has installed an underwater shark net, which is maintained vigorously. Lifeguards of course dot the beach in their towers and are always vigilant for anything untoward. Always swim with the tower in plain view and familiarize yourself with the emergency signals they might be using.

The beach is largely safe to swim in, with the north part being rated a gentle beach safe for tourists of all levels in swimming. The south part of the beach is reserved exclusively for surfers though and is also infamous for its dangerous rip current which has ironically been called by locals “Backpackers Express”, because it is so close to the bus stop and many tourists are ignorant of the dangerous current and swim in the wrong part of the beach.

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