Backpacker Bingo
I live and travel a lot in South East Asia. I see a lot of backpackers and "mind the Gappies" is seldom far from my thoughts. I have a game, Backpacker Bingo, simply a list of typical gap year, traveler type attributes that I can only tick off after I take a picture of them. Examples: unfortunate beards, too many wrist/ankle/arm bracelets, dressing overtly like a local, gingers, tour t-shirts, walking with a staff, new dreds,studied boredom, matching outfits, overly large water bottles, misery, carrying your own toilet paper in public and so on. I saw this in Yangon international departures and grinned like an idiot.
www.flickr.com/photos/amasc/4868388358
(occassional, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 19:45, 4 replies)

I love all that pseudo-spiritual guff backpackers use to justify their trips.
Why not just come clean and say "Mam, Dad, I'm jetting off halfway round the world to see some exotic sights and get completely shitfaced, see you in six months"?
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 22:16, closed)

Oh my god
and I'm an atheist.

Stick the image tag thingy round it.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 23:07, closed)

When I started at Uni
We had a subject dinner to meet the tutors. We went round the table and everyone said what they'd done before Uni. Everyone except me banged on for about ten minutes a piece about their gap year.

By the time they got to me (and I was very drunk by this time), I said 'I left school. I got a job in a supermarket for the summer. I came to University. I didn't have a gap year because I'm poor and I can't be arsed anyway.'

I found it funny. Tutors found it funny. Other students didn't.

And good post by the way...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 23:18, closed)

I too enjoy sneering at others in order to prop up my bloated ego.
Living in London, that means absolutely anyone from outside the M25.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 13:27, closed)