5. The Beaten Track: Anti-Tourism as an Element of Backpacker Identity Construction

‘Learning to be Zen’: women travellers and the imperative to happy

“…She undermines these assertions by suggesting that temporarily refusing to 'brush your hair' carries very little weight on the larger political scale of gender issues. This firstly resonates with certain backpacking theory that argues that earlier forms of 'drifter' travel have lost any political impetus and have now become an exercise in self-indulgence (Cohen 2004, Welk 2004, and secondly with the pleasure seeking discourses of third wave feminist writings which challenge the pre-supposition that pleasure and enjoyment remain incompatible with feminist politics (Segal 1994 in Kemp and Squires 1997, Findlen 1995, Walters 1998. The reflections throughout this research demonstrate a diverse, often problematic yet strong presence of feminist consciousness and resistance that dispute the individualised portrayal of the self-absorbed, indifferent backpacker characterised by the aforementioned tourist literature.…”

“…Furthermore, what do such individualised, reflexive journeys do for women's conceptions of 'empowerment', collective thinking and ideas of happiness and wellbeing? Building on these earlier observations into the changing political priorities of the backpacker (Cohen 2004, Welk 2004), I provide a closer inspection of feminist and post feminist identities to illustrate how these apparently individualistic tendencies play out in complex ways.…”

Personal identity (de)formation among lifestyle travellers: a double‐edged sword

“…Several studies focused on backpackers have identified a small number of individuals, or "travellers", as they prefer to call themselves instead of "tourists" or "backpackers" (O"Reilly, 2005;Welk, 2004), who return to extended travel serially, and as such, treat travel like a career or way of life (Riley, 1988;Uriely et al, 2002;Westerhausen, 2002). As such, lifestyle travellers are different from backpackers, as the latter have traditionally been described as perceiving their travels as a self-imposed rite-of-passage or time-out from their "normal" life path (Graburn, 1983;Maoz, 2007).…”

Creativity in Hospitality Industry: Study of Hostels in St. Petersburg

“…One of the most common characteristics used by scholars for backpackers' identification is budget travelling and, therefore, budget accommodation (Loker-Murphy, Pearce 1995; Nash et al 2006;Larsen et al 2011), there is also a strong emphasis on meeting and socializing with other travelers as well as locals (Loker-Murphy, Pearce 1995;Murphy 2001;Sorensen 2003;Nash et al 2006), flexibility in travel planning (Uriely et al 2002;Welk 2004;Nash et al 2006), tendency to have long vacations and engagement in informal and participatory activities (Loker-Murphy, Pearce 1995). Therefore, backpackers are characterized by a set of distinctive features that enables researches not only to distinguish them from tourists (Welk 2004), but even recognize them as a subculture (Power 2010). The scope of studies on backpackers' culture embraces such issues as travel motivations and risk concerns (Larsen et al 2011), origins of backpackers (Welk 2004), approaches to identity (Maoz 2007), backpacker enclaves (Wilson, Richards 2008), sustainability of backpacker tourism (Purvis 2008).…”

“…Therefore, backpackers are characterized by a set of distinctive features that enables researches not only to distinguish them from tourists (Welk 2004), but even recognize them as a subculture (Power 2010). The scope of studies on backpackers' culture embraces such issues as travel motivations and risk concerns (Larsen et al 2011), origins of backpackers (Welk 2004), approaches to identity (Maoz 2007), backpacker enclaves (Wilson, Richards 2008), sustainability of backpacker tourism (Purvis 2008). Recently some of researchers have argued development of a new sub-cultural group within backpackers -flashpackers (Hannam, Diekmann 2010;Jarvis, Peel 2010;Paris 2012).…”