Ted
From my generation the term back packing means: to go hiking over night or for weeks ,like to the West Coast Trail or the Chilkoot Trail. Or like the canoe trip you are planning ,now thats back packing!!
which does not suck at all!

Ted, We can absolutely relate.

We have just come home (to Australia) from 4 weeks travelling the North Island of New Zealand. We shipped the bikes home by sea from Auckland.

Between delivering the bikes to the freight depot and our flights home, it came as a shock how limiting (and expensive) our transport options were.

We decided that "bored and bikeless" is not a state of affairs that we will ever willingly participate in again.

Motorbikes have saved me from backpacker hell many times, Goa, Vang Vieng and Snookyville for examples where a little travel out of town made the place bearable (except Vang Vieng, what a dump)
Indian trains are fun but tickets and touts test your patience. One trip in particular where when escaping the Kumbh Mela (a large religious festival) my only option was a crammed and completely pitch black train, all night hands were trying to open my backpack. I was hiring bikes at each destination and while I sat crouched on my one square foot in the dark I decided to buy and ride full time.
I have never looked back

I've never been the sort of guy who was attracted to the phenomenon. Rather have my own wheels and means of escape when ending up somewhere nasty.
The whole group thing puts me off, smelly hippies looking down at you if you have the plague but are oh so eager to hitch a ride with you. White people with dreadlocks, I don't know.. I came across many while touring around Australia in my old Chrysler Valiant Stationwagon and they never seemed to be genuinely happy, always begging for a ride, a drink or some food. I was never offered any gas money and I was not going to ask for it , and no I didn't anticipate a quicky in return either. Call it Bad Karma but I'd stay away from that scene as far as possible....Long live individuality, a set of wheels and a full gas tank!

Rob

I've done a lot of backpacking and a lot of motorbike riding--both throughout the world. IMHO each has its place. Those who complain with such vigor about backpacking and backpackers need to think about not going to Goa or the Gold Coast if they find these places so objectionable.

Couple of points, chosen from many more. Backpacking always brought me into closer contact with local people, helped me learn bits of local language, introduced me to aspects of local lives, and (yes!) even took me to a variety of out-of-the-way places I'd never have seen had I control over where I was going. It's the great advantage and disadvantage simultaneously of traveling by local transport---you never know who's going to sit next to you, where you'll end up, or whether someone's baby will puke on you or the goat on the roof will urinate in terror while you're too packed in to move out of the way. Sometimes your transport breaks down and you suffer mightily....but this unpredictability is what leaves room for all the fun stuff to happen.

On the other hand, a bike is great fun in part because I get to decide where I'm going, who's going to sit with me, where I'll stop and what route to take. I like this more and more....and it's been a while since I was puked or peed on. But I miss the days when I wasn't so much in charge, and bigger adventures happened routinely....until I take a trip with no motorbike and miss the freedom and control they provide. It's a balance, and it's never quite perfect.

I've never been to Goa; don't like that shit. Went to the Gold Coast once, and didn't like that much either. As should be obvious, a lot of overland riders are jerks, and a lot of backpackers too. This has nothing to do with the inherent advantages and disadvantages of one mode of travel or the other.

Oh, and don't forget: backpacking's far cheaper and much more carefree too: no worries about where the bike is parked or whether you'll find a set of tires in time, and no need to fret about paying a thousand dollars here, another thousand there for bike transport. The OP'd be spending a lot more time traveling and a lot less working through the northern Europe winter if he left the bike behind. That's why he ended up bike-less in India in the first place, right? It was either that, or stay home. He's just got to choose his destinations better.

Humbly submitted,

Mark

On the first point, Mark, is that I have to go to a place to make my own mind up. The bike just gives people a quick out if it's crud, which makes for a more dynamic and less emotionally tiring trip.
If just travelling in one country it is my experience that I spend about the same either backpacking or bikepacking (try and get a single room in the touro hotspots!) I have stayed at farms, homes even stick-made fishing huts on beaches, all a world away from the general backpacker trail. It may be elitist but I don't think so. For an old jaded backpacker as myself I am so happy that bikes have given my adventuring a new lease of life.

I have done quite a lot of backpacking in my life and it is a fine and cheap way to see a country.

Last time I was travelling Central America and sitting in a bus with another mad driver and fearing for my life once again, I was fed up and tired so I went home. I said to myself: "no more"! and decided to revive my motorycle driving license, safe some money and travel SA on a bike. This time I wanted to be in control of where I go, how to get there (alive) and when.

Backpacking gave me the feeling that it's more like travelling from A to C and missing out B.

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Luc