Media coverage and netizen enthusiasm show “budget travel” is clearly heating up
“25-year-old backpacker ‘budget travels’ for two months on 2,500 yuan,” “Two Wuhan students ‘budget travel’ 2,500 km for 147 yuan,” “Post-85s girl from Zhengzhou budget travels to 14 countries”... Nowadays, just open a search engine and type in “budget travel,” and these “heroic deeds” of “budget travelers” can be easily found.
Hitchhiking, sampling the most authentic local specialties at unassuming old shops... For netizens on the other side of the screen who haven’t had the experience of “budget travel,” the unique charm of the “budget travel community’s” travel life goes without saying.
“Not about money, but about exhausting the scenery.” Inspired by this slogan, this low-cost way of independent travel is attracting a significant number of young Chinese.
On the evening of the 14th, when Zhang Xueling, a student at Northwest University who was planning her travel itinerary for the Qingming holiday, opened an online forum about “budget travel,” she began to regret her previous promise to her family that she would “never go budget traveling.”
“It’s past midnight, and there are still over 400 people online on this forum. I asked a question, and someone quickly replied. Also, the forum has quite detailed guides for ‘budget travel’ in various places. Even if I want to keep my promise not to go ‘budget traveling,’ I’ll still use the food and local culture sections as important references,” she said.
“Those who haven’t gone ‘budget traveling’ are itching to try, while those who have can’t stop talking about their experiences. This might be a true reflection of the inner state of young people during the ‘budget travel craze,’” Zhang Xueling said.
Spend less, feel new — “budget travel” is a different kind of tourism
“If regular travel is the ‘regular army,’ then budget travel is the ‘guerrilla force,’” said Zhou Xiaoyang, a worker at a state-owned enterprise in Xi’an, who has ridden in scientific expedition vehicles and slept in herders’ convenience stores. Speaking about his experience last summer of hitchhiking 1,700 km from Nyingchi in Tibet to Chengdu in Sichuan, he remains enthusiastic.
“Because from Xi’an to Lhasa and then to Nyingchi, I had been following tour groups the whole way, so after I started ‘budget traveling,’ through comparison, my fondness for it grew even stronger,” Zhou Xiaoyang said. “Touring with a group is ‘sleep on the bus, pee at the station’ — dull and boring. The feeling of hitchhiking is completely different: people who give you a free ride hope you’ll chat with them along the way. The changing scenery is what you see, and the shifting topics are what you think about. I think this is a travel experience that’s closer to the essence of travel.”
According to statistics, among Chinese members registered on the “couchsurfing” website, 70% are between the ages of 18 and 29. Aside from urban white-collar workers and outdoor sports enthusiasts, college students are undoubtedly the main force making up the “budget travel community.”
“Most college students have the desire to travel during their school years. They have winter and summer vacations, but most don’t have enough travel funds, so it’s no surprise that they’ve become the main group for ‘budget travel,’” said Fan Zixuan, a counselor at the School of Design and Art at Shaanxi University of Science and Technology. “Because we’re now in the era of self-media, many ‘budget travel’ guides and pieces of information are continuously created, revised, and shared online. As a result, for each individual, the likelihood of successfully going on a ‘budget trip’ has increased significantly compared to the past.”
Teachers: Need to step in to protect the “budget travel craze”
“Personally, I support my students going on ‘budget trips,’ but ‘budget travel’ lacks policy protection and legal safeguards. Relying solely on the internet and moral strength to maintain it, I’m still not at ease about these inexperienced young people,” Fan Zixuan said. In the current environment, she advises college students who want to go ‘budget traveling’ to think things through thoroughly.
“Common sense for safety and self-rescue, doing homework on planning routes, having a careful travel companion or emergency contact, and being mentally prepared to endure hardship — none of these can be missing,” she said.
“The probability of getting a hitchhike in Tibet is much higher than in Xi’an. Tibetan drivers think, ‘If I don’t give you a ride, no one will,’ while Xi’an drivers think, ‘There are so many people, if I don’t give you a ride, someone else will.’ A simple process of hitchhiking for ‘budget travel’ can naturally bring to mind the psychological phenomenon known as the ‘diffusion of responsibility’ effect,” Zhou Xiaoyang said. Compared to the “budget travel craze” itself, the sociological common sense, moral shortcomings, and lack of legal systems it reflects should be more concerning to people today.
Chen Yi, a teacher at the Graduate School of Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, believes that “budget travel” and the tourism industry itself may have a competitive relationship. Amid the “conflict,” it’s very possible that relevant departments will introduce some policies to protect the tourism industry while restricting budget travel.
“However, if relevant regulatory systems or basic clauses could be introduced in this area to ensure the safety of travelers, that would be even better. Because consumers have different requirements and evaluations for tourism products, the forms and outputs of tourism should also be diverse and multifaceted. Only in this way can the interests of different consumer groups be truly maximized,” Chen Yi suggested in the end.