backpacking

Strippers and Thugs in San Antonio, Texas

/ Dan Hackett / Leave a comment

You are sleeping soundly in your four poster bed, dreaming of sugar plums and prancing ponies. A slight breeze makes you shudder in your sleep, and you instinctively draw the covers tighter around you. As you drift back to your slumber, a noise jolts you awake. Your eyes flick open, but you daren’t move. Slowly, you push yourself upright, gathering your nightie up around you. The window is open a crack. That’s not right. You closed it before you went to sleep. You always close the window.

Something moves in the corner of your eye. A shadow shifts, and you freeze.

“Who are you?” you croak. “What do you want from me?”

I step forward and you behold my terrible form; a translucent wraith, my face gaunt and hollow, my eyes sunken. I reach out for you, you back away frantically, until you bump into your wardrobe. Trapped. Continue reading →

What the Dream Costs

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A few months ago I wrote an article called something like ‘“I can’t afford to travel” Shut up. Yes you can’. It was, as the name suggests, a tongue in cheek little post about how if you really want it, you can always scrape the money together to get yourself out into the world. Well, that was months ago, and since then I’ve discovered whole new depths of scrimping and saving to travel. I got dressed for work today, and was busy rummaging through my wardrobe for something that wasn’t either decrepit beyond salvaging, grossly miss-sized, or simply in spectacularly bad taste. As I rifled, I realised just how bad my clothes have got, in the wake of all my scrounging. Can’t afford nice clothes. Must travel. Continue reading →

That Time I Dropped My Phone Off a Cliff in Yosemite

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***You walk into my office. It’s dark, but you can see my outline through the gloom. I’m sitting with my back to you, the slatted blinds casting thin slivers of moonlight over me. My face is lost to shadow. A cigarette smoulders in the ashtray on my desk next to a tumbler of some brown liquor. You say my name and I turn my head. I bring a bottle to my lips and laugh a bitter, gurgling laugh. I ask you what you want. You tell me you want to know what really happened, that summer day in Yosemite. I turn sour, I tell you to get out of my office. I stand up out of my seat and slam the bottle down on the table, spilling liquor over a stack of old newspaper cuttings. Get out, I tell you, but you stand firm. You whisper a name. I pause. I pick up the cigarette and draw it deep into my lungs.

“Samsung S3 Mini?” I murmur, as the smoke curls out of my mouth and the embers reflect in my eyes. “I haven’t heard that name in years…”*** Continue reading →

Monument Valley

/ Dan Hackett / Leave a comment

We were driving through Arizona, although we were passing through states so quickly I found it hard to keep track, especially with all the lack of sleep and the bottles of wine I was putting away at a rate that would draw a lopsided smile and thumbs up from Gerard Depardieu.  Over endless miles of highway we sang songs and played games and drew on the windows with wipe clean pens. We laughed at each other’s gaping mouths when we took naps, and we disagreed on who should get to be in charge of the radio. (Nobody else wanted Meatloaf, dammit) The rocks around us steadily turned red as we headed south. We stopped at a deserted little settlement, some depressing metal huts in the arse end of nowhere. Navajo people sat in the huts, browsing magazines with disinterest, all kinds of Native American bric-a-brac stacked around them. Daggers, bows, arrows, necklaces. I hobbled straight past all of it and found a bathroom; the first we’d had passed in hours. Thank god. Continue reading →

Lost in New York

/ Dan Hackett / Leave a comment

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Travelling alone tests you. It’s shit at the time, obviously, but when you look back on it, wrapped in the warm blanket of hindsight, it’s a beautiful thing.

I was in New York in August, 2014, at the end of the best three months of my life. During those three wild months I had visited Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and had travelled the whole width of the USA. New York was the end of the line, and I was due to fly home in a couple of days. I was the most tanned I’ve ever been, my hair was long and curly and bleached by the sun, and I was horribly unfit after months of partying and boozy adventures around the world.

I realise I could have lied to you then, and made myself sound more charming, but… meh. Continue reading →

People I’ve Met: Nando

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I’ve decided to begin a new series, focusing on cool people I’ve met while travelling. It doesn’t matter where you go, how beautiful the beaches are, how cheap the beer is, or how golden the sunsets, if you’re in bad company, you’ll have a bad time. The people you meet out in the world are crucial to everything I love about travelling. It’s the people you meet that will change you, more than simply the places you visit.

So here goes. First up, we have Fernando Pacheco. Continue reading →

7 Times I’ve Been Conned While Travelling

/ Dan Hackett / 2 Comments

You’ve got to keep your wits about you when travelling. Especially when you visit a poorer country, as a tourist you are a walking wallet. When the average local earns roughly a hundredth of your wage, you can’t really blame them for occasionally trying to relieve you of a few coins. I’ve thrown together a few of the various backpacker scams I’ve come across on my travels. I’d love to say I was too witty and wily and outfoxed the devious local populace but… come on. It’s me. I’m a half wit.

Continue reading →

Berlin Part 1: Hobo Poetry

/ Dan Hackett / 2 Comments

Well, I’ve found my happy place.

In May I visited Berlin. Flying into Tegel airport (which is shit), I bumbled my way into the city to meet my friend, Michelle, at Leinestraße. I’d not seen her in a year. She’s a little sassy French girl with delightfully tussled hair who parties harder than anyone I’ve met. Her appetite for dancing is never ending. She’s cool. Continue reading →