Hungry heart — gender on the road

The practice of free-traveling

“…Gaining access to foreign places, especially forbidden or 'diffi cult' and 'risky' destinations, is stimulating and sometimes may be the only available way for a young individual to demonstrate one's independence, confi dence and uniqueness. It can also be one of the attractive ways to demonstrate gender power, when mobility and access are demonstrated as prerogative of men (Bjurström and Rudberg, 1996). Consumption of places via standardized practices of organized travel would not bring dividends to young people in their symbolic power struggle with parents and coevals since access to the place with money, the fi rst-world country citizenship and by means of a travel agency can be regarded as conventional tourism.…”

“…(Lapshin, Avtostopom cherez Afriku) For young travelers who have citizenship of a country which in most cases does not allow visa-free access to foreign spaces and does not allow getting visas in a third country, freedom of movement is not an abstract value but a prized commodity. And foreign space becomes a territory to be conquered, making the struggle for access more full of meaning which gives intensity to life (Bjurström and Rudberg, 1996).…”