The only time I felt "older" was on the backpacker bus trail from Koh Tao to Khao Sok, where some studiously jaded youngsters viewed my cheery optimism with the contempt it obviously deserved.
I met Lisa here, a Californian backpacker and photographer my own age, and we spent afternoons swimming and walking, evenings lazing in hammocks with cold beers or eating crab (and that fiery pepper sauce) at the quiet restaurants (the two best are part of the family-run bungalow resorts at either end of the beach).
Alternatively, you can relax in the backpacker town of El Chaltén, admiring the views, the condors and the craft beers – La Vineria has a great stock of ales and Patagonian wines.
Mike Carter, travel writer and author of Uneasy Rider, a solo motorbike odyssey round Europe Even if you've only got one or two weeks, it's worth embracing your inner backpacker.
The Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire revealed in March that he had apologised to the star of his first three films, Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and A Life Less Ordinary, for replacing him with Leonardo DiCaprio for his adaptation of Alex Garland's cult backpacker novel.
The backpacker friend was really into acid so coming across Kazantip, with its 14 dancefloors and half-naked young people having sex in the Black Sea, really blew his mind and he described it so excitedly to Hector that they took the next plane out there to make a documentary - Raving in the Black Sea.
A backpacker who consults his "Rough Guide" for snippets of up-to-date information in a dark tent is unlikely to tote along a Kindle and a lamp, or a paper book, if he can get the e-book on his backlit phone.It is now only a matter of time until absolutely all books become available, and properly formatted, for mobile phones.
Elsewhere, armed groups have seized both swanky and backpacker resorts, taken control of police stations and set up roadblocks around the capital, Suva.
Such weirdness makes North Korea, a basket-case state, a must for a certain sort of backpacker.
Government and military officers say that troops came under fire as they were retreating along narrow streets near Bangkok's backpacker hub.
It is easy to see what persuades these so-called "backpacker" teachers to leave home for Britain's schools.
