1 year and 13 cities later, a Gen Z solo traveller spills the secrets to backpacking

Chances are, you’re not going to find a secret mystical commune like Leonardo DiCaprio did in The Beach (2000); gluttonous pleasure, spiritual healing and eternal love like Julia Roberts did in Eat, Pray, Love (2010); or even meet the girl of your dreams on a train like Ranbir Kapoor from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013). TBH movies, books, shows and Instagram make solo backpacking sound like a saga of consecutive life-changing events. But here’s the one thing no one tells you: solo travel can be boring. Like, staring-at-a-wall, scrolling-through-your-own-gallery kind of boring. I mean, let’s be real—before Clementine struck up a conversation with Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), she was probably just sitting there, bored out of her mind.

The travel bug bit me when I was a kid. My family would take me birding—which as I grew up evolved into a curiosity about cultures, cuisines, terrains, dialects and birds, of course. At 18, I became an accidental solo backpacker. I was travelling with a friend; we landed and our hotel booking was rejected as he was still 17. He decided to return home but I headed to check out the backpacker hostels. I’ve not looked back since.

Backpacking is like reading a book—except here there are multiple narratives, some plot twists, hours where nothing may happen, and a cast of real characters. Several articles give you ‘10 things to do on a backpacking trip’. I guarantee you, if you go from a place of curiosity, you’ll find, at the least, three more new things. Here are a few of mine. Some practical, others purely for the sake of the plot:

Keep your hands free

I was in Gokarna, Karnataka, trekking from Paradise Beach to Om Beach, weaving through dense forests and scrambling over rocky shores. The serene beachscape, however, was soon interrupted by a group of IT folks from Bengaluru—determined, yet utterly out of place—dragging their trolley bags through the sand at Paradise Beach. Meanwhile, there I was, panting under the weight of my tent and backpack, wondering if they’d make it across the jagged rocks. Spoiler: I’ll never know.

Moral of the story? If you’re backpacking, ditch the glossy cuboids on wheels. You’ll need your hands free—to grab cash, sip water, scratch an itch, catch a thief, hug a friend, or, you know, not tumble off a cliff. It’s called ‘backpacking’ for a reason.

Get your steps in

In a quiet Assamese village during Bihu, my feet led me straight into a courtyard Bihu performance—one moment I was a passerby, the next, I was sipping tea and munching on pitha (those glorious rice wrappers stuffed with jaggery and coconut). In Bir, Himachal Pradesh, my daily ritual became walking from my homestay to the landing site to catch the sunset. After about five walks, I was grinning and waving at familiar faces along the way, like some local celebrity—except my only real claim to fame was showing up at the same time every day. I would have never petted so many cats, wandered into charming bookstores, stopped to watch a street fight (yes, really), gotten delightfully lost in hidden alleys, or asked for directions from kind strangers if I hadn’t chosen to walk.

Hit the local markets at dawn

One thing that remains unchanged across India’s villages, towns, and cities is the magic of weekly markets. Pro tip: skip the evening chaos and head there at dawn, when the vendors are setting up, the air is thick with the smell of fresh produce, and the first chai of the day is being poured.

Whether it’s Tiretta Bazaar, Kolkata’s Chinatown, steaming up the morning with momos, or Bara Bazar in Shillong, where Khasi women, their khaw (bamboo baskets) strapped to their backs, weave through narrow lanes with betel nuts in tow, every market has a story. How else will you taste Gangtok’s kinema (fermented soybean), sample the chorizos left behind by the Portuguese in Goa’s Mapusa Market, or learn the local names for fish in Fort Kochi’s bustling seafood stalls? Backpacking in India thrives on romanticism—and the local market is where it all comes together.

Find the best stories

Durga Aunty was my neighbour during my time in Jibhi in the Tirthan Valley of Himachal Pradesh. It was just two houses on a deodar-dense slope. Her age remains a mystery even today, but her stories unravelled over close to a century. Every evening, she would sit outside weaving her pattu (handloom), talking about the good old days and grumbling about fewer people speaking their native language now. And then like clockwork, she’d stretch and pluck a persimmon—my cue to leave.

Every place I’ve travelled to, it’s always been some old shopkeeper or restaurant owner or neighbour, like Durga Aunty, who has not only given a bored traveller company, but also vicariously taken me through that place across their many decades.

Volunteer and learn something new

I can now fix drinks, prune apple orchards, sow rajma, make a kitchen inventory, and milk a cow. Totally useless, but great for the plot of all my travels. Volunteering is a time-honoured barter system for backpackers, where you swap your skills for accommodation and food. While it has not fully taken root in India, there are several ways you can do it. Backpacker hostels, cafes, farms, and NGOs need volunteers. It’s by far one of the cheapest ways to travel for a longer duration and in a more immersive way. You also get to make small communities of your own in every place you go.

Write, draw and take pictures

If done wisely, documentation can be a crucial practice to keep a record of how you see the world and how your habits and preferences have changed as you travel further. It can be through pictures, videos, sketches, or simply writing. After a year-long journey of backpacking across 13 cities in India in 2019, I decided to write about it. It took me three years to put it into an illustrated book. The very process of sitting every day and writing clarified my intentions for backpacking. The fact that there are still so many historic events that were never documented—so many species of wildlife, plants, cultures, and food recipes that remain undocumented—is something that struck me deeply.

Solo: My Year of Backpacking and Unpacking by Indrajeet More is published by Penguin Random House India and is available in all leading bookstores. ₹399