Backpacking has been around for quite sometime now. Some guys themselves have been doing it for decades now. I got talking to people who have done some backpacking and none actually seemed to know how it all began. Everyone can recall, and with lots of happy memories, how it started for them but it was more of a mystery when it came to the very history of backpacking.

I thought let me give it a try. I am sure the history of backpacking must be as interesting and intriguing as the backpacking itself.

Man has been a traveller for a long time. As a matter of fact we were nomadic when we started. But that won’t fit the bill here. That was a way of life, more of a compulsion than a choice. Maybe those guys preferred to stay put as a recreational activity. So, that as history is out of question.

“Around the world in eighty days,” is an interesting book that seems to have been based on the adventures of Italian traveller Giovanni Careri. And many vouch for him to be the one giving the idea and starting the tradition. Well, this seems some what acceptable. But I guess I need to move on.

In terms of something very concrete in the past would be US’s National Scenic Trail Act of 1968. What this act did was that it made it possible for general public to use hitherto reserved vast areas of land for recreational purposes. It gave better options to holiday people as it made the whole hiking tracks systematic. Of course the development of sophisticated equipment, such as rucksacks or tents like the Outwell Montana 4 family tent, as well as globalisation and the increase in airline flights, have made backpacking across the world much more accessible.

Another popular view considers the role played by Hippies in 1960s and 70s. They definitely were the people who moved around a lot that too along fixed locales and do leave enough hints for having influenced the backpacking tradition.

But I guess it would be near impossible to zero in on any particular individual or event in history to have started it all. As for backpacking enthusiasts, the real fun lies in being the part of the adventure and that’s good enough, right.