Fucked off with getting fucked up?
27th January 2025
Drinking culture whilst travelling
It’s pretty common knowledge that a huge part of travelling or backpacking culture is comprised of drinking and going out. Is it peer pressure? Is it the easiest way to make friends? In true tits up fashion - let’s fucking talk about it.
Seeing as I’ve travelled for over two years, and lived in hostels for seven months, this evidently makes me a seasoned veteran to be able to talk on such topics - JOKING obviously (maybe just semi-seasoned.)
I’m not going to beat around the bush - if you’re going travelling and staying in hostels, this often means a lot of drinking and also being peer pressured into drinking. Yes, quiet hostels definitely do
exist, but in some locations you don’t really have multiple options at your disposal, and even places that aren’t branded as party hostels still have their fair share of drink-centered socialising.
And this is entirely the issue at its core, it’s a social one.
Drinking is the easiest and most accessible way to meet people whilst travelling; one: because it's arguably the only communal language regardless of where you're from in the world, and two: it gives people the liquid courage to go and talk to the strangers that they otherwise would be too terrified to.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of hostels arrange other activities that don’t involve alcohol and a lot of them do not use peer pressuring tactics to get you to join in to the ones that do. And ultimately, you absolutely do not have to go to anything you don’t want to - it’s your own trip at the end of the day, make of it what you will.
With that being said, there are many hostels in Australia and SE Asia that have reps with a sole responsibility to make it feel as much like Magaluf as humanly possible, pushing people that evidently do not want to participate in certain activities, participate out of sheer guilt or from the fear of missing out. And the mindset I have today is unfortunately not one that was quite developed at age 22, and like many travellers, I was instead preoccupied with the notion that not drinking was synonymous with being boring.
But it’s less about the hostels themselves and more about the culture fundamentally. It’s this idea of getting fucked up, making meaningless connections with people on the other side of the world for one night and never seeing them again - which don’t get me wrong, is, sometimes, as incredible and exciting as it sounds (and a rite of passage.)
But once you’re in another hostel bar for the 15th night in a row, dancing to uptown funk for the 3rd time that night and 20th time that week, necking back another watered-down wet pussy shot, it can become old quickly. Or should I say a bit more meaningless.
I really don't want to sound like a debby fucking downer here, I'm just trying to highlight how it's the pressure of being perceived as antisocial that forces you to participate in these things instead of actually wanting to; or only joining in because you don’t see another way fit to meet people. When I was working and living in a hostels, versus just travelling in hostels, I saw a tremendous decline in my social life, primarily because I was drinking less.
The mindset needs to shift.
Why I don’t drink as much as I used to
I used to LOVE the feeling of being drunk. Uni was just a constant cycle of two states: being fucked or being hungover, and nursing the hangover by getting drunk again. Admittedly, this does make me sound like an alcoholic. But we were in Newcastle, and everyone around me was doing the same.
During these three years, peer pressure was quite a huge thing for me. Don’t be fucking boring got thrown around at any single opportunity: turning down a shot, going home at 2am, saying no to a night out. I would have said at the time I didn’t particularly succumb to peer pressure, but in hindsight I definitely did.
So maybe I grew to love the feeling, or was forced to. It was hedonistic; more more more: I need to be more drunk. This is shit because I’m not drunk enough. Give me three more vodka trebs and then I'll be having fun. I met a girl when I first started travelling who didn’t really drink
because she was emetophobic; at the time, I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard; two years later, I completely resonate with her.
During those first six months or so of travelling I was drinking a lot, like everyone does up the east coast of Australia. But there was a difference, and this is probably just a female thing, but I wasn’t in Newcastle anymore living with six of my close friends, I was with people who I hadn't known 24 hours previously. It was like a mental block in my head, I couldn't let myself get fucked up because it was essentially dangerous to do so. Then after this travelling period waned, I’m pretty sure the Gold Coast sucked out every element of the party girl that was once in me or maybe it was the anxiety, who knows.
But ultimately, I used to love the feeling of being drunk and now I really don’t.
So I’ve not been drinking as much. I never used to be a casual drinker, I don’t like wine or beer, so what, I was just supposed to have a vodka soda at dinner? I drank to get drunk, and will happily admit that, and similarly admit that’s not a great mindset to have.
I’ve alllllways had bad hangovers, but they’ve recently become insufferable. A huge turning point for me was about a year ago. I was on a night out and I didn’t have work until 9am the next day which was essentially midday in the Gold Coast, so I could let loose.
However, I did not drink enough to warrant the occurrences of the following day. I forced myself to work, nauseous as hell, and spent the next 4 hours repeatedly vomming my life up in the one shared toilet for staff and customers. After sheepishly appearing to the queue of 7 women that I had just been serving moments before, tears streaming down my face, I begged to go home, where I spent the entire day in bed non-stop throwing up. It took me maybe 3 days to feel normal again. God, and my friends say I'm dramatic?!
I didn't consume any alcohol for a month afterwards, then ended up having four drinks on a random Sunday night. Monday rolls around and it was a similar story. I've since become terrified of that feeling again, I don’t know if any night out is worth that the next day. Yet, if I’d have heard myself saying that three years ago, I would have thought I was pathetic.
So, maybe it's the fear of being this hungover again, or maybe it's the fact I hate hate hate wasting an entire day after drinking, or maybe I no longer enjoy the lack of control - maybe it's all three. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good boogie, but I'm quite happy to do this with a few drinks, or completely sober; I don't feel that I really need the liquid courage. Since moving to Melbourne in October, I think this side to me has definitely been reactivated. So I wouldn't say I'm going sober, I'm just drinking less. But the principal still stands:
I think I like the idea of a night out more than the night out itself.
And I think I always have.
I know a lot of people my age experience a similar thing, and as I’ve been reminded, this decline generally tends to occur after uni and often rebounds during your late 20’s, so this may only be a temporary shift.
Essentially, if you genuinely enjoy getting absolutely twatted multiple nights a week and have the funds to do so then knock yourself the fuck out!! But if you don’t and you’re just drinking to succumb to peer pressure or because you don’t want to seem boring then just remember you don’t have to do a single fucking thing you don’t want to, whether that’s whilst travelling or in your home town.
If someone gave me a dollar for every time I was called boring for not drinking or leaving early then I’d be marginally less poor than I am now, and whilst you can call me a lot of things, boring definitely isn’t one of them.
Take it with a pinch of salt, if someone can’t socialise without alcohol in their system, then that’s on them baby, not on you.
okay maybe I'll make one exception for market shaker, newcastle - I will always love you