fair enough. i´d add ''and to no-one´s detriment'' after your word fulfillment, Geoff. sure you'd agree.

i was once in a remote place in australia, difficult to reach by road. as i came over the last hump before the wide, inland river i was looking for, i spied the roof of a houseboat. bugger it.

but their was cold, i had none and they were willing to share. i wasn´t quite sure whether to see myself as hardcore for having got there alone on a bike, or soft for enjoying the benefits of refrigeration. can anyone help me in this dilemma?

cheers,
andy

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www.outforaspin.blogspot.com

The most important thing is that you get yourself out there...no matter your mode of travelling...

AND who wants to be stereotyped?!?!?

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edde
93 BMW K75s
www.motoedde.com

This is to me at least the whole point. You have to give yourself time to 'enjoy the moment' as and when they arise.

Put it this way, had the place been desserted would it have been more enjoyable ?

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.

Ted Simon discusses this, in his usual eloquent manner, in Jupiter's Travels.

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Dave

Can't see a dilemma - a 's a after all.

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Dave