My Top 10 First-time Backpacking Experiences

My first backpacking trip was the well beaten path of Australia and South East Asia. I wanted to share my top 10 experiences during that first 6 month trip to help inspire others to go, and show all the amazing new things you can do in a few months.

10. Camping Under The Stars, Outback Australia

Nothing caps a day off better than rolling out your swag in the middle of the desert and falling asleep under the stars. If you don’t know what a swag is, imagine an outdoor sleeping bag with a thin mattress sewn in.

I was fortunate enough to do this 3 times on my travels – the first time being the most memorable. After a long day of walking, a BBQ and some stories by the camp fire, we rolled out our swag on our own patch of wilderness. It felt so liberating to be out in the open with the sky as my ceiling – I can tell you it is a very surreal experience not seeing a roof over your head when you wake up.

As there is no light pollution in the outback the stars were brighter than I have ever seen before – a great moment to reflect on my travels and listen to the sounds of nature. One of those special moments when you feel at one with the Earth and one I certainly won’t forget.

9. Castaway Island, Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay was number one on my to do list before I went to Vietnam. I had seen it so many times on TV and in books and always knew I had to visit one day.

However, the more you travel the less content you are with just seeing a place. Most tours around Ha Long Bay were precisely that; sightseeing cruises.

I was recommend Castaway Island by a friend. It is a privately owned by Hanoi Backpackers Hostel (note: this tour goes from Hanoi not Ha Long City) and is basically an all action party island – so if you don’t like partying then this tour may not be for you.

The tour began as a leisurely cruise around the bay where you could really appreciate the beauty of this place. We anchored at one particular beauty spot and then were allowed to jump off the boat into the emerald waters for a swim.

After around 3-4 hours of cruising and swimming we arrived at the island and that is where the party started. The next day, depending on how fresh you feel, is where the action happens with activities to do all day. You could take a kayak out and explore caves that lead into hidden lagoons, rock climb and abseil the limestone cliffs, wakeboard or simply just stay on the beach and go for a swim.

As the sun started to set on our second and final night on the island, the drinks started to flow. The next day you cruise back through the bay to Ha Long City – which was a much more peaceful than on the first day, as everyone was so hungover!

8. Great Ocean Road, Victoria Australia

I love a road trip and this was the best one I have ever done. Me and a friend rented a car in Adelaide and had 4 days to drop it off in Melbourne.

After a long 6 hour drive through the boring fields of South Australia we reached our first destination, Grampians National Park. The great thing about being a traveller is you get to these places when everyone else is at work, so on a Wednesday at 3pm we had the whole park to ourselves – we saw one couple in the 3 hours we were in the park. That’s what made this place so special, so often are places ruined by the hundreds of tourists. We slept in the car that night to save money and when the sun began to set all the wildlife in the park came out. Honestly we must have seen 200 kangaroos that evening.

The next day we drove from the Grampians to Port Campbell. After driving though the Victorian bush you reach Warrnambool and join the Great Ocean Road. This section of the Great Ocean Road is home to some of the most impressive limestone stack formations in the world, the most famous being the Twelve Apostles – they take your breath away.

The final stretch of this epic coastal road was probably my favourite. The stunning road winds around the coast, cutting into the cliff, not only making it one of the most scenic roads in the world, but also one of the most fun to drive. The day was mainly spent at lookouts, there are plenty of them on this road. We made a stop off in the Great Otway National Park and saw at least 20 wild koalas – we got there at the perfect time, in the late afternoon, the only time they are active.

We really didn’t want to give the car back the next day.

I highly recommend hiring a car at some point on your backpacking trip – it gives you so much more freedom.

7. Hike And Bike, Chiang Mai

Someone recommended this trip to me and it really didn’t sound too appealing at first – the only reason I did it because he was so insistent, but boy was he right.

The company is run by an American expat, which meant it was so much more organised and professional than all the other trips I did in South East Asia.

The day started with a 7.5km trek up a 1000m tall mountain through the humid jungle. That sounds horrible I know, but in fact it was really enjoyable, it only took 2 hours, the jungle was so beautiful and lush and I had some great company along the way.

When we reached the top we were above the clouds and arrived at a Hmong hill tribe village where we were cooked a delicious spicy pork noodle soup.

After spending about an hour with the hill tribe learning about their culture and way of life we geared up and got on our mountain bikes (that were driven up by the company whilst we were hiking).

Before we booked we had to decide whether to go on the beginner, intermediate or advanced downhill mountain bike track – I wanted to have fun, so even though I had never done downhill mountain biking before I chose the intermediate – afterwards I was so relieved I didn’t choose the advanced track!

It was extreme to say the least, the track was split up into about four sections, and in each section I didn’t pedal once, nor take my hand off the brakes, but still was absolutely flying down the mountain – it was such a rush, you knew one mistake would result in serious pain.

I made to the bottom without falling off, where we arrived at an idyllic lake with the mountain we just trekked up (and hurtled down) as the backdrop. We ended the day with a delicious local meal in a beautiful bamboo hut, positioned on stilts above the lake.

6. Full Moon Party, Koh Pha Ngan

This party is now infamous and a lot of people say it is not as good as what it used to be, but I thought it was one of the best parties I have ever been to.

I went to the Full Moon Party on the 28th of December, which meant I stuck around for the New Years Eve party a few days later. The great thing about Koh Pha Ngan, particularly the Haad Rin area, is everyone is there to party, so you don’t get any party poopers in your hostel. Everyone in my hostel went out together, there was about 40 of us, we played a massive game of ring of fire before we headed out in the common room.

Both nights are a bit of haze to me, but I do remember them both being awesome. The main thing I can remember is just how many people were there – because it was it New Years Eve there was an extra influx of people – it was estimated 60,000 people were on the beach in both nights that I was there.

I remember going down a big slide and seeing a few fire shows, then I had one bucket too many on both nights, which is the mistake nearly everyone makes. You see, you don’t get a conventional glass for your drink, you get a bucket, which makes it quite hard to judge just how much you have drank.

Two brilliant nights though.

5. Swimming, Everywhere With Everything

I love swimming and when travelling you constantly find yourself in the water.

There are so many places to go for a swim – not just the sea, but rainforest waterfalls, desert oasis’s, volcanic hot springs, freshwater creeks and more.

You can also swim with any animal you want to; from dolphins and whales, to sharks and crocodiles.

When first writing this list of experiences I found out that the majority were swimming related, so I have created a separate list of My Top Swimming Spots and Experiences

If you going travelling and can’t swim, learn! You will be missing out otherwise.

4. Bungee Jumping, Cairns

Before my first backpacking trip I had a list of things I had to do before I went home – one of those was an extreme activity.

It was a tossup between a bungee jump and a sky dive and as the bungee jump was half the price I went for that.

In the morning before my jump I strangely didn’t feel nervous at all – I think is because when you are travelling doing a bungee jump just seems like any other day.

However when I took my first step up the 50m staircase to the platform all the nerves hit me at once, and every step I took I got more and more uneasy.

The cord was tied to my ankles – surprisingly there was no safety briefing – the operator just said shuffle to the edge and jump as far away as possible. They also told me it was the first time this cord had been used and that I would be testing it for them – which didn’t do much to ease my anxiety.

It was at that point I said out loud “why the f*** am I doing this?”. I did it though – my mentality throughout travelling is to say ‘yes’ to everything and have no regrets about not doing something.

The first millisecond after I jumped there was this amazing feeling; a feeling you must only get when you think you are about to die – it makes you feel so alive! The best way I can describe to someone that has never done it before is like those dreams you have when you are falling – only in real life and you don’t wake up in the comfort of your bed!

During the decent your adrenalin is really pumping and then when the cord tightens you feel utter relief that the cord didn’t snap and that you are still alive which I expressed with a very loud “WOO WHO!”

I don’t think I will do anything again that will surpass the sheer adrenalin rush – I have been on rollercoasters since and they are such an anticlimax now. Some people say a bungee is a waste of money because it only last two seconds, but let me tell you the rush lasts all day and the memories a lifetime.

3. Scuba Diving, Great Barrier Reef

At the top of my list of things a wanted to do was scuba diving and to do it in the biggest and most famous reef of all – The Great Barrier Reef.

I ended up getting my open water diving license in Thailand because it is much cheaper, but was lucky enough to try three introductory dives in the Great Barrier Reef beforehand. I spent two days at sea, where I did nothing but snorkel, dive and eat.

Even though the Barrier Reef is visited by masses of tourists each day, it is so big you can usually have a reef to yourself. The coral is beautiful and the life in and around it is so diverse. In the two days I spent there I saw reef sharks, stingrays, Nemo™, barracuda, giant trevally, napoleon wrasse, parrotfish plus hundreds of colourful schools of fish – I even got to hug a curious turtle.

Scuba diving itself is absolutely amazing. I would describe it as being like an astronaut in outer space; you are breathing normally in a place you shouldn’t be; you are completely weightless; you are in terrain that is complete foreign to a human beings and finally there is complete silence – the only sound you can hear is your breathing through the regulator – it makes you sound like Darth Vader too.

It is surreal, yet beautiful. Probably the most relaxing thing I have ever done, but still completely exhilarating.

2. The Gibbon Experience, Bokeo Nature Reserve, Laos

The Gibbon Experience is an eco tourism trip that reinvests your money into protecting the Bokeo Nature Reserve and it endangered gibbons. The idea is you live like a gibbon, swinging from tree to tree by day – replicated by zip lines – and then spend the night in the canopy of the rainforest.

We arrived at a river on the edge of the jungle and our first task was to zip line across it to enter the jungle. Every zip line was practical, not a cheesy tourist attraction.

Afterwards we trekked for about 2 hours deep into the jungle – our guides carried rifles to protect us from the Elephants, Tigers, Leopards and Bears that call this rainforest home.

We then arrived at 9 consecutive zip lines, differing in length and height to help us cover more ground through the jungle – one was about 700m long, 100m high and literally crossed the entire valley – such a thrill.

At the end we reached our treehouse, where we would be spending the night – of course the only way to enter was by zip line. This treehouse wasn’t like the one your friend had in their back garden when you were little, this was 50m up the biggest tree in the jungle comprising of 3 stories. The views were breathtaking.

The treehouse was surprisingly luxurious. Full size mattresses were pre-made and covered with giant mosquito nets, food was made fresh and then zip lined into the treehouse from a nearby jungle village. The best part was the shower – rainwater was collected in a tank on the roof – there was a curtain to protect your privacy from others in the treehouse, but the other three sides were completely open giving you stunning views of the jungle canopy – showering naked 50 meters up a tree is a very liberating experience.

In the 2 days I spent there, we went on a few more treks and zip lines and had fun socialising in the treehouse. At night it was great, the guides would leave us and we would have a few drinks, then fall asleep listening to the sounds of the rainforest. When we left the jungle at the end of the trip we came to waterhole with a tyre swing and tubes for us to play and relax with. I have never felt more at one with nature than when on this trip.

1. Swimming With Whale Sharks, Ningaloo Reef

Yes, I already mentioned swimming as a whole at number 5, but this is my number one swimming experience, as well as probably being the best thing I have ever done.

I absolutely love nature, animals in particular, couple that with my love for swimming, and I am sure you can see why swimming with the biggest fish in the sea is number one on this list.

There are many places to swim with whale sharks and certainly much cheaper places than Australia, but Ningaloo reef near Exmouth (WA) is the only place where they congregate in such numbers (in season) and where you can be guaranteed to swim with them because tour companies send up spotter planes to find them.

The whole day was brilliant, firstly unlike the Great Barrier Reef you don’t have to spend 3 hours on a boat to get to the reef, it is literally just off the shore. By 10am we had already swam with 2 juvenile, yet still 3m long whale sharks. The youngsters were much more curious and more beautiful than the adults. One was so curious it turn towards me with it massive mouth wide open, luckily I was pulled away by one of the tour staff before it swallowed me.

Suddenly the whale sharks seemed to disappear, we were told by the spotter plane the reason was because a large pod of killer whales were in the area. This was completely unexpected, the crew said they see orca about once a year. As everyone was so excited by this we spent about hour having a private orca watching tour, which was an unbelievable bonus to the day.

After lunch the orca pod had gone and whale sharks were being sighted again. We had a lot of cases of jumping in the water and the whale sharks diving down deep – probably because they were still spooked by the orca. It had become a bit frustrating jumping in and only catching a glimpse, until the final swim of the day.

I jumped in and directly underneath me was this huge shadow, which then swam up to the surface right in front of me – a massive 8m whale shark, about the size of a single deck bus.

I swam as fast I could to get alongside this magnicent creature – I was one of a few people to catch up with it as it moved effortlessly through the water. I saw it move its eye towards me and we shared a moment for about 10 seconds – mutual respect, we both knew neither wanted to harm one another – we than swam together side by side for at least two minutes before I was called back – an experience I will never, ever forget.

The day was capped off with champagne as we returned to shore – one of the best days of my life.