Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Backpacking |
BackpackingNoun1. Carrying something in a pack on the back; "the backpacking of oxygen is essential for astronauts". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Backpacking is traveling long distances with a backpack. Two forms can be distinguished.
Backpacking is the most thorough combination of hiking and camping. It is usually done for recreation, to explore a place that the backpacker considers beautiful and fascinating. A backpacker camps in one place, then packs all of his or her gear into a backpack and hikes off to a different location. This gear must include food, water, and shelter or the means to obtain them, but very little else, and often in a more compact and simpler form than one would use for stationary camping. Long-distance backpacking trips may be done lasting weeks or months, sometimes aided by prearranged food and supply drops.
Overnight stays may be out of doors (under the stars or in a tent), or in some sort of permanent shelter such as in a hostel or with members of hospitality services. Hiking and walking trails cover all types of terrain and range in location from semi-developed areas to complete wilderness. The main advantage of backpacking over day hiking is that it allows the hiker to see remote areas, almost entirely devoid of people or their effects, that are otherwise inaccessible. The main disadvantages are that the encumbrance of the backpack itself substantially reduces the hiking pace, so that less ground can be covered in a day, that the backpack is something of a nuisance and a distraction to enjoying the scenery, and that camping-related activities use up a considerable amount of time every day.
Backpacking camps are more spartan than ordinary camps. In areas with comparatively high use, a hike-in camp might have a fire ring and a small wooden bulletin board with a map and some warning signs regarding wildlife, campfire safety, and the like. In truly remote areas, a hike-in camp is no more than a level patch of ground without undergrowth.
A large industry has developed to provide lightweight gear and food for backpackers. The gear includes the backpacks themselves, as well as ordinary camping equipment modified to reduce the weight, by either reducing the size, reducing the durability, or using lighter materials such as special plastics and alloys of aluminium. Designers of portable stoves and tents have been particularly ingenious.
The food is typically highly packaged, dehydrated fare that can be reconstituted by adding hot water. Some backpacking meals are pre-cooked and vacuum-packed without being dehydrated, and reheated when needed by a chemical reaction, allowing the backpacker to avoid carrying a stove and fuel. (This technology was originally developed for military purposes.) However, meals of this type are heavier, and if the backpacker carries more than two or three, there is typically no weight savings.
The Scouting movement has traditionally been very involved in backpacking.
Backpacking is also a subculture of generally youthful travellers exploring the planet on a limited budget. They refer to themselves as backpackers because they can be roughly defined as travellers that travel with a rucksack (a large backpack) instead of a suitcase. They often go hiking and camping, backpacking in the other sense, but they more often explore more urban settings. United in having slim wallets as well as a passion for the exotic, they seek out low-cost options such as standby flights (or if backpacking trip is circumglobal, a relatively cheap round-the-world air ticket which permits numerous stops), youth hostels, free hospitality services and buying food at supermarkets abroad instead of going to restaurants. They often collect in beautiful places with low costs of living such as Goa (India), Essaouira (Morocco), or Thailand.
They are generally very social, and a highlight for many backpackers is meeting others on the road. They are quick to share advice on great sites, cheap accommodations, and e-mail addresses. Many strive to meet locals wherever they visit but find that the loose network of backpackers makes them feel at home instantly in a foreign country.
Many backpackers gain temporary work (usually low-paid, unskilled, casual, and sometimes in violation of local labor laws) in the countries they visit. For instance, London's pubs are well known for the number of Australian bartenders working in them; "Irish pubs" the world over hire Irish backpackers.
Novels about backpackers include William Sutcliffe´s Are You Experienced (India), Alex Garland´s The Beach (Thailand) and Emily Barr's Backpack (India, Vietnam, China).
See also: YHA, Tourism, Hospitality Services.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Backpacking."
Synonym: BackpackingSynonym: packing (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Backpacking |
| English words defined with "backpacking": packing. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "backpacking": COUNSELOR, CAMP. (references) |
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Theater & Movies | |||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | "Backpacking". Credit: NASA. |  | Person backpacking to historical site. Credit: Unknown. |
 | Backpacking in the brush of Stonehouse Canyon. OR 2-23. Credit: Unknown. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Costa Rica Waterfall" by Ryan Smith Commentary: "Went backpacking in costa rica. Saw this beautiful." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| "Backpacking" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 75.00% of the time. "Backpacking" is used about 44 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 75% | 33 | 60,273 |
| Noun (singular) | 13.64% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 6.82% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Noun (proper) | 4.55% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 44 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "backpacking": backpacking tent ♦ go backpacking. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "backpacking"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Japanese Kanji | バチカン宮殿 (Bacchus, bacillus, back, back charge, back combing, back issue, back margin, back music, back screen, back-band, backbone, back-drop, backfire, backgammon, background, background music, backhand, backing, backless, backlog, back-number, backpack, back-propagation, backs, backskin, backslash, backspace, backspin, backstab, backstop, backstretch, backstroke, backswing, backtrack, back-tracking, backup, badge, BADGE system, bag, batch, batch size, bathyscaphe, batter in the hole, buckle, bug, bugging, merchandise obtained by buying out the inventories of failed retailers instead of going through normal wholesale channels, rearview mirror, suplex, Vatican). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | バックパッキング . (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ackpackingbay.(various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Backpacking" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: ack-acking. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-c-c-g-i-k-k-n-p" | |
-2 letters: pickaback. | |
-3 letters: backpack. | |
-4 letters: backing, packing. | |
-5 letters: baaing, baking, bipack, caking, pacing. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-b-c-c-g-i-k-k-n-p" | |
+1 letter: pickabacking. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
