On Sun, 8 Jan 2023 16:51:17 +1100, Peter Moylan
<peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 08/01/23 15:49, TonyCooper wrote:
>> On Sun, 8 Jan 2023 12:41:41 +1100, Peter Moylan
>> <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 08/01/23 12:15, TonyCooper wrote:
>
>>>> In the US, a backpacker is called a backpacker. It is someone
>>>> who hikes and camps in extended journeys. It's a recreational
>>>> endeavor.
>>>
>>> Also true here, except that the majority of backpackers seem to be
>>> tourists from Europe, who use the backpacker hostels as a cheap
>>> alternative to hotels and motels. Sometimes I do the same myself
>>> when visiting Sydney, where hotel prices have gone through the
>>> ceiling.
>>
>> Bowman may be from the US, but I would think "backpacker" would be
>> dead familiar to an American.
>
>Anyway, I think we're all in agreement that there's a difference between
>migrant workers and people on a cheap extended vacation, even though the
>latter, at least in Australia, do some of the same sort of work that is
>done by migrant workers.
>
>> The backpacker you describe is a particular type of backpacker.
>> It's a person - usually a young person - that travels to a different
>> country for a summer, a "gap year", or an extended period of time.
>> They stay in cheap hotels, hostels, or couch-surf with people they
>> meet in their travels. Some of their time might be in large cities.
>
>I wonder how they can afford that. The ones I know about count on
>getting work to cover at least part of their travel expenses. Cheap
>hostels and couch-surfing can save some money, but they still can't live
>on the smell of an oily rag.
>
>As it happens, two of my children did a gap year in Europe after
>finishing high school, but that was under a different arrangement: an
>exchange program where private families host the young people in their
>own homes, with some money provided by parents, and with an assumption
>that the voluntary aid will balance out among participating countries.
>My son had to move a couple of times because of a failure in the hosting
>arrangements, but my daughter lived with the same family for the whole
>year. They both did a full year at local schools.
>
>The schooling was less than perfect because of being thrown into
>subjects that they had no background in, and imperfect competence in the
>language of instruction. (My daughter, for example, struggled badly with
>Spanish and Dutch, but she did brilliantly in English.) But it didn't
>really matter if they failed subjects, because they had already
>qualified for entry into an Australian university.
>
>> The backpacker I was thinking of hikes in the great outdoors and
>> sleeps in a tent, hammock, or sleeping bag. They "rough it". Their
>> excursion may be over a long weekend or for a week or two, but have
>> a regular job to go back to.
>
>We have that here, too, of course, but such people are usually called
>"campers" or "hikers". The default assumption here for "backpacker" is
>someone from overseas on a working holiday.
>
>> In either case, it's not a term associated in the US with the people
>> who travel around to pick fruit or engage in other seasonal
>> activities. The people who do that do it for a living. It's all
>> they are qualified to do, and many are sending what money they can
>> back to family in some other country.
>
>Agreed. The people here in that category are usually Pacific Islanders.
>In the 1800s Islanders, then known as Kanakas, worked in what was
>essentially slavery in the cotton fields and cane fields, but they are
>better treated now. Their work is important because the islands
>generally have weak economies and are heavily reliant on tourism, so it
>helps a lot having people who send money back home.
When I was in Zambia (in the '70s) the most common "backpacker" was
an Aussie (or occaisional Kiwi) on "walkabout"