I remember this was one the topic of my final high school exam essay? Should I paste it here???

In the 70s bcakpacking anywhere outside Europe was pretty "out-there", now it means nada... yet I meet BPers in hepas of places that have lay scarred from coral on remote becahes waiting for their mates to run back into the jungle to find a stretcher, or a 67 Canadian year old guy that went to Chile for a holiday with his wife and told her he decided he was gonna walk home... (which he did!!!).

Waddya call all these guys? Do they need their own name?

I've met some great 4-week-holiday-back-packers also, so why do we wanna set ourselves apart with special title if we chose to do it a bit harder?

Same reason I have a Ducati and a Husaberg... cos its nice to be alittle different, i didn't pay any more than a rice burner, and bit less than than a fart (harley...all noisi no substance), and I wouldn't ne arrogant to say I got better value, just difference.

You wanna call yourself an explorer, choose your audience and call yourself Magellan (it'll pass in a 36th floor office), an adventurer (should work down at the local pub with the yobbos and the rednecks) but if ya meet someone else doing something you respect, call them something cool; not urself.

If you've got wild enough stories, they'll choose what you are, not you. But even then I disagree with myself... I love hearing the beautiful stories (cos I usually tell my own spectacular stories instead of my beautiful ones because people love the shock value, love to be impressed), so I'd rather hear a story of immense beauty or unusual kindness.

So here's a new thing to rouse some debate:
Part (yes, only one of teh reasons) is that when we travel a 3rd world country on our bike, doing something that not many people have done, with our wealth and our white (sic, excuse me those of you guys that are red, brown, yellow, blue, black or purple) skin we are at times adulated.

So how about... "White Gods on Two Wheels": tongue in cheek guys...

don't we all "suffer" at least a little from what I call the white god syndrome when a tribe of little tackers are tearing along beside you, their little legs pumping as fast as they can go on their rusty outsized and outdated bicycles laughing and sticking their thumbs up, or when a local tribesman runs his hands lovingly over your bike wishing he had one and asks for a photoof himself on your ride?

Lol, what's in a name... PERCEPTION.