10 Things You'll Probably Only Ever Do as a Backpacker

When you're a backpacker you lead quite the different life as to what you would lead at home. Your money habits change drastically, your hygiene can alter and you day to day routine gets completely thrown out of the window. Some of these changes are good and some are just pretty cray and you're happy to leave them in the middle of the Australian outback.

1. Hitchhike

I would never hitchhike in my home country, the UK. Not because I think the UK is anymore particularly unsafe than the likes of Australia, where I have hitchhiked, but I simple wouldn't even think of hailing down a random car and asking for a ride at home. Maybe its because I have my own car, maybe its because British folk are so awkward at chit chat or maybe I do feel unsafe? But I've hitchhiked a fair few times on my travels, and although as a single blonde backpacker I do feel like I could be an easy target, I'm fairly trustworthy.

Have you Ever Backpacked Because of a Movie?

(Mont St Michel, France. Inspiration for Minas Tirith in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

I always wonder where people get the inspiration on where to backpack and travel to. Hopefully if you're reading this, then you rely on travel blogs for inspiration. Some people listen to friends stories, but I think a lot of people get their inspiration from movies or TV shows.
There are many movies which have inspired my travels and made me want to go to certain places. A recent destination on my travel to-do list is Gunkan Jima, which is an old mining island off the south coast of Japan. A lot of Japanese people question why I want to visit such a place, and I say because it featured in the latest James Bond film, Skyfall. So I thought I'd list a few other places I've visited and want to visit which have been inspired from movies.

We Can't Leave Until I Have My Shot Glass!

This isn't a post about alcoholism, although I’m sure it would be a lot more fun if I were describing a drunken rampage down the Amazon, or waking up in the tropics of Madagascar with only an empty tequila bottle to my name, but give me a few years and I might cover those stories as well.

Within the past week I visited the famous Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, Japan and completed one of my Japanese aims which was to find a shot glass with ‘Japan’ written on it. For every country I go to I collect a shot glass and add it to my collection. Some people collect postcards, some collect key rings, I collect shot glasses. This all started off when I was 17, visiting Amsterdam. As I was the young age of 17, my friend and I didn't get served for any….well you know what I mean... therefore we spent a lot of our time trailing round the sex museums, clothes stores and souvenir shops. I found a shot glass for €1 which seemed like a bargain so I bought it. My second shot glass was in Disneyland Paris. As a Disney loser I went crazy in the downtown Disney souvenir shop and bought most things my hands could grab. This of course added up to over €100, so I put a lot of things back and headed for the SALE section, and wa la Disney shot glass found on sale for €1, hardly surprising as no child is searching for that truly perfect shot glass with Mickey Mouse’s face on.

Travel Inspiration: Scuba Diving Hotspots

For the past few years I've really gotten into scuba diving and I quite regularly research the top dive places around the world and stare at images of tropical waters. I learnt to scuba dive in the hot tropics of Birmingham, England… hence why I'm keen to venture away from any quarry which is filled with mud, dust and rusty cars (don’t ask). Once you’re a qualified diver you can pretty much scuba dive at your own leisure around the world. The most obvious of qualifications, and the most recognised, is the PADI Open Water diver course which took me 6 weeks to do in the UK for £300. I highly recommend learning somewhere a bit more tropical than a pool in Birmingham. If you choose to learn in places like The Philippines or Indonesia, you can be qualified at a large fraction of the price I paid, plus you're learning in some of the most beautiful tropical waters in the world.

Since moving to Japan my thirst for scuba diving around the world has grown so much more. At first I began to look at the hotspot of the red sea which apparently hosts some of the best dive spots in the world:

The Seven Wonders of the World

Many travel blogs seem to include some kind of Travel Bucket List or Places To See Before I Die. Whilst looking around these many lists I've found that many bucket lists include a variation of all the different kinds of seven wonders of the world, which essentially can act as a bucket list in itself. This may seem easy at first -it's only seven places after all - but you may be surprised to hear there is no longer just a simple list of 'The Seven Wonders of the World', rather there are seven, seven wonders. Complicated? Not exactly, but over the years travellers, people in charge etc. (I’m not exactly sure who exactly decides these lists) have added different wonders of the world, for example 'The Seven Modern Wonders' and 'The Seven Underwater Wonders', which has created an ever bigger list of places to see.

Originally, these were the first Seven Wonders: 

• The Colossus of Rhodes 
• The Great Pyramid of Giza 
• The Hanging Gardens of Babylon 
• The Lighthouse of Alexandria 
• The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 
• The Statue of Zeus at Olympia 
• The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus