Paper long abstract:

Long understood as a transitional moment significant to identity formation, travel is not only a sensory experience of sights and sounds, but also a space wherein individuals may be freed from the socio-cultural norms and expectations that govern interpersonal interactions and everyday behaviour. As a liminoid space, travel often incorporates moments of heightened sociability and corporeality. Subsequently, in the backpacking community hedonistic desires and touristic impulse tend to rule in equal (albeit sometimes conflicting) measure.

Situated within a larger research project, which examines the role of extended international travel in the lives of young Australians, this paper explores the significance of some of the more hedonistic elements of the backpacking culture as they are witnessed in ethnography, relayed in travel narratives and evoked in the media. While it would be easy to dismiss (as many travellers do) what one interviewee dubbed the 'sex, drugs and alcohol trifecta' as being culturally void and inauthentic, I would argue that these hedonistic elements common to the backpacking lifestyle are more rightly conceived as products of globalised transience. Further, they are undoubtedly influenced by young travellers' concerns with freedom and authenticity - that is with 'real living' - and desires for experiential knowledge.

While issues of sexuality, desire and intimacy are infrequently addressed in academic studies of tourism and often downplayed in travel narratives, they are nevertheless subtextually present within the backpacking community. These are, if you will, the words left unspoken in emails or phone calls home, the photo captions left unwritten. Notwithstanding, interpersonal encounters and corporeal experiences are equally important as traditional tourist sites and experiences in the construction of place, self and other.