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I wasn't always part of the backpackers club...
While traveling solo meeting other backpackers is easy—you meet them at hostels, cafés, walking tours, or maybe just randomly on the street.
Whenever I see a person lugging an oversized bag on their back, I know immediately that I can probably strike up a conversation with them with ease.
If you’ve been on my site before you know that I’ve been traveling for a while, but you might not know that I’ve been a dancer for much longer.
I started ballet at five, tap a few years later, and have learned and tried everything from belly dancing to hip hop.
And though I’ve made life-long friends with a good handful of the backpackers I’ve met, when I set off for my year-long journey in January 2018, I felt like I didn’t quite fit in with the community of these long-term travelers since I was new to the scene.
After a few months and once my red backpack collected some scratches and stains, I started to find myself feeling at ease and into a traveling groove.
That groove turned into the coolest jive once I met up with one of my good friends in Vietnam.
Although she hadn’t traveled much as a backpacker before, what she did have was a friendship with me that went back years, including many moments together performing on stage.
Everything changed when one of my best friends joined my adventure.
Today’s story is all about embracing our authenticity—which for us means breaking out into unsolicited dance routines at any given opportunity (ie. if a song we like comes on).
As I’ve said before often it’s the people we travel with that make or break our experience, and having this friend by my side in Vietnam made a world of a difference.
The reality is that it never matters how you fit into any definition—whether that means fitting in with other backpackers or being part of some kind of elite club.
What I discovered after traveling with my dear dancer friend is that we can make up the rules. You can be whatever version of yourself you want.
Here’s some inspiration to let go and make the world your oyster—or in our case our dance floor! Below is an excerpt from my upcoming travel memoir.
Backpackers, Dancers—It's Raining Men!
The bar on the ground floor has a chalkboard sign advertising a bottomless rum and coke special until 10 p.m. tonight.
I point the sign out to Lauren. “Why not?” I ask. It could be fun to hang out with some other travelers for the night.
We walk around Hoi An again and stop at a cluster of tiny plastic tables for a spicy noodle soup. Once back at the hostel, we change and head down to the bar. We sit at a high table next to a few backpackers we recognize. Lauren and I shoot back rum and cokes faster than we guzzle Vietnamese iced coffee in the hot sun.
“I think I’m a little buzzed,” I whisper to Lauren.
“Same yo!” Lauren laughs.
We chat with a few people traveling from north to south
in Vietnam who show us pictures of places we have yet to see. Ha Giang’s conical mountains convince Lauren and me to plan for at least three days in the north.
Two rounds of drinks later, massive monsoon droplets tumble from the clouds, forcing everyone to huddle under the bar’s awning. The next song blasts from the speakers. I recognize after the first two bars of music that the song is “It’s Raining Men”. I turn to face Lauren, but she’s out of her seat. She’s in the rain, leaping in jetés and pirouettes and throwing jazz hands into the air. She waves me over to join her as one of the Weather Girls. I bounce up in a flash, taking my chair with me to use as a prop in our improvised dance routine. The backpackers at the bar whistle loudly and cheer us on. I kick my leg over the chair and tombé onto the brick stones beneath us as Lauren pas de bourrées around the patio. The crowd grows wilder and louder, which eggs us on to continue until the song finishes.
“I couldn’t just sit there while “It’s Raining Men” played,” Lauren huffs, “in the pouring rain!”
“Totally!” I hunch over to stretch my hamstrings. “That would have been a huge missed opportunity!”
Out of breath, we head to the bar to refuel.
“Wow!” A guy next to us at the bar nudges my shoulder. “Are you guys like dancers or something?”
Lauren and I exchange a glance, grin, and then reply in unison, “Yeah, you could say that.”
We’re the rock stars of the party. Even more awesome is that one guy we were chatting with earlier filmed our improvised dance! Other people probably filmed it too. Somewhere out there, maybe even years from now, there will be a traveler reminiscing over that one time two crazy girls at a hostel bar broke into a jazz routine in the pouring rain.
Ready to make your way into the backpackers scene?
If you’ve never traveled solo before and are ready to give it a shot, I have two helpful FREE guides for first-time solo travelers to help pack, prepare, and save money on your trip!
If you’re interested in hearing more of my adventures with Lauren be sure to order my upcoming memoir, ‘One Year and a One-Way Ticket’!
