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Everybody has done it at least once in his life but for the backpackers this is a daily routine. Do you remember that night when you were feeling alone, abroad, in the middle of nowhere, thinking that you were going to bed earlier because you were tired of your long bus ride or your 62 days of bunk bed sleep.

But finally you start talking to a stranger in the lounge area. The conversation always starts with “what’s your name and where are you from” and the answer is all yours. I love to mix it up a little bit, just to have some fun, so sometimes I’m Johnny or Alex or Max and I come from Quebec or Canada or my favorite one Armekistan, the small country in between Georgia and Turmekistan. Everybody say, yes I know the place, but inside of you, you laugh your ass off because it doesn’t exist but people are afraid to say it. The concept is that you can be anyone you want for as long as you decide.

Than the fun begin, you start talking about where they have been and the next places they will go, you find places that both have in common, you share dreams, laugh and passion and instantly you become best bodies for the night. People join you around the couch, you share a bottle of wine, some vodka shots or beers and for 5$ you start to get tipsy. You forget your loneliness and exhaustion and you start to live again.

For one night, strangers became your best friends! You hop from bars to clubs until you came back home at 6AM after a midnight swim without remembering everything. But you know for sure, that you spend an amazing night with people that you just knew for a few hours.

The best things about it, is when you share something like that while travelling, you create a bond in between strangers that will continue for years and one day you will finish on their couch somewhere else in the world. The spirit of a backpacker is so free, that even after only a night or 2 with somebody around the world, his first words when you tell him on Facebook that you are coming to his town in a month or a week, is: “this is crazy, you can come at my place for a few nights and we will go drink like last time in Guatemala or Thailand”.

That’s a thing that will always make me think, WHY strangers open their homes and their doors for you when sometimes friends that you know since your childhood will never think to invite you at their places when you are out of town and looking for a cheap places to crash.

The trait of giving without ever waiting for something in return will always surprise me from a backpacker.