Backpacking in the 90s – do we miss it?

Louise Slyth in the Whitsundays during the 90s. Photo / Supplied
A lot has changed since the digital revolution of the late 90s, especially in travel. Louise Slyth reflects on her backpacking heyday in NZ and beyond, and asks if everything was more fun before Facebook.
I was clearing out some cupboards recently and came across my old photo albums. They contained memories of my time backpacking with my boyfriend in the late 1990s.
In my early 20s, after two years of uninspiring jobs and hard saving, I took my dream trip – a year of backpacking through Bali, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. Those were my halcyon days. I travelled light both physically and mentally; I had one rucksack and no responsibilities.
Looking through those photo albums got me thinking about how travel has evolved. We’ve become so immersed in our digital world that it’s almost hard to comprehend how much has changed in the past 27 years.
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Planning a year of backpacking was harder, as there was less information available and no easy way to cross-reference it. We got some basic intel from the travel agent who booked our flights, (Skyscanner didn’t exist then) and supplemented that by devouring the Rough Guide to New Zealand and the Lonely Planet for Australia. We also picked up tips from other travellers we met in hostels along the way, and sometimes wove those into our itinerary.
There were no online timetables or booking facilities, which led to occasional disasters … like the day we arrived in Botany Bay in Sydney, only to discover the next bus wasn’t for another six hours. The 15km walk back isn’t one I’ll forget in a hurry.
In some ways it was a lighter mental load – now there’s almost too much information out there and it’s easy to go down research rabbit holes. Plus, there’s the depressing sense that everywhere has already been claimed; you’re simply walking in someone else’s footsteps and there are no pure shores to be found. Back then, I was blown away by the white sands of Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays; now you can visit vicariously on YouTube.
I’ve always been good at finding my way around, but maps were never my friend. Countless time was wasted roaming around getting my bearings – after all, a map is only useful if you know where you are to start with. One of my abiding memories of New Zealand is how friendly everyone was. When we arrived in Wellington, exhausted after a flight and struggling to make sense of our tiny map, a man approached us and asked us if we needed help. Not only did he know where our hostel was, he walked us there and gave us a few tips about Wellington on the way. These days we rely on Google or Apple for a map, which helpfully plots not only your current position, but the estimated walking time to your destination.
One of the great things about travelling in the 90′s was the ability to truly switch off. I don’t think I even appreciated it at the time. I didn’t have a mobile or a laptop, so wasn’t tethered to my emails or newsfeed like an invisible umbilical cord. I was blissfully unaware of world events and had no cares, other than my daily eating and sleeping arrangements. That said, those arrangements would have been easier to make with the aid of the internet at my fingertips.
When I look back, it’s a wonder our trip was as successful as it was. Back then we relied on our guidebooks and our wits. These were the days before TripAdvisor, Travel Forums or Google maps, when dropping a pin meant something hit the floor, and taking a photo of your meal would have generated a raised eyebrow from the table next to you.
Guidebooks were often outdated, and it was a regular game of Russian Roulette as to whether you’d find yourself in a room with a view of the ocean, or a cockroach-ridden hovel. I remember calling a hostel in Bali (at great expense in those days) to arrange a room for our first night after a 15-hour flight. We arrived in Kuta at 3am to find the hostel overbooked. Daunted and disheartened, we let our taxi driver take us to a place he recommended. It was dirty and depressing and my spidey senses told me to get out. After a fitful night’s sleep, we declined breakfast and hot-footed it out as soon as we could.
Then there was the hostel with no locks on the doors in Franz Josef, or the one with bedbugs in Rotorua. Of course, they would be weeded out now with the advent of TripAdvisor and Google reviews.
There were a few dramas that could have been avoided with the benefit of online weather forecasts and twitter, like the time we had to re-route because all the roads to Queenstown were blocked by a landslide.
Those days could be challenging, but you emerged with a tale to tell and were always off to bigger and better things. Every uncharted day was an epic adventure.
Those were the days before Facebook was even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye, so you could romp in your bikini without worrying about being tagged in an unflattering pose. Photographs were expensive to develop and took up space in my already-crammed backpack, but they were irreplaceable.
Taking them was a completely different experience. Firstly, I was limited to just 24 pictures in a spool, which meant that each shot was precious. Secondly, I had to wait until the film was developed to find out if I’d captured a dusky dolphin breaching the ocean in Kaikōura, or just had a blurry shot of my hand. There was always some prankster who wanted to jump into my shot and make a peace sign, and there was no AI to remove all traces of them.
These days, I’m a control freak and I like to plan things. I do lots of research before I make any big moves. I rarely look before I leap, but maybe that’s just age catching up with me. In the 90s, travel was spontaneous and sometimes dangerous. You couldn’t plan everything; you often had to just jump and hope for the best (literally in the case of skydiving in Lake Taupō).
When I think back to that experience, I can’t believe I did it – jumping out of a plane with a company that just happened to be a popular spot on the backpacker trail. I wasn’t able to scour through user-generated reviews to check their safety record, or the type of light aircraft that would take us up to our 12,000-foot drop. I simply trusted in my instructor and my fellow backpackers, and I trusted that the universe had my back. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life, and beautiful Lake Taupō was the perfect place to do it. I didn’t capture it for “the gram”. There is no record of it on social media, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I do regret the friends I made and lost along the way. Sure, they were fledgling friendships forged on the Magic Bus, but some were really lovely people I’d like to have kept in touch with. Nowadays we would connect on social media and arrange for our paths to cross again along the backpacker trail, but back then it was a case of sharing your travel plans and hoping that you each put pen to paper before you missed your shot at the Poste Restante, (where you could pick up mail if you had no fixed address in a city). Alternatively, we would share our parents’ addresses in the knowledge that we would need to resuscitate our relationships upon our return home.
With hindsight, if I could do it all again, there isn’t much I would change. I definitely would have benefited from internet research, and my photos would have been a lot better. But otherwise, it was perfect.
Everyone likes to think that the time of their youth was the heyday, but I believe the late 90s was right on the cusp of the digital age that has ushered in such profound social change. I’m glad I got to experience travel in all its raw spontaneity.
Things weren’t as easy and effortless, but they were adventurous and authentic. It was travel with #nofilter and my trip was all the better for it.