Ten Travellers You’re Bound to Meet on The Road.

You’ve booked your ticket, packed your backpack and highlighted all the important bits in your Lonely Planet.

This is it. The big one.

You are going on that big round the world trip.

Here’s a preview of ten travellers you are bound to meet out there on the road.

1. The Massive Tight-Arse Traveller.

Not to be confused with the budget traveller, the massive tight-arse traveller can be found complaining loudly and frequently about having to pay to use the toilet. Because the world owes them a free, clean toilet at all times. They never tip, ever, and will walk 2km in the heat to save 5c off the cost of a bottle of water. They consider places that charge tourists one entrance fee and locals another, lower fee, to be the biggest injustice known to mankind. This is despite earning many times what the locals earn and the fact that if locals were made to pay the tourist price, many of them would be unable to visit

Catch-phrase: “It’s not the money, it’s the principle.”

2. The Super-Traveller Traveller

This traveller has travelling down to a fine art. They have a sixth-sense for finding the best and cheapest food in any given location. Their sense of direction is so freakishly accurate you start to wonder if they have had Google Maps implanted into their brain. That back-pack they are carrying is half the size of yours, yet they are travelling twice as long and have everything they need. They are chatting away with locals while you are still struggling to remember the word for ‘thank-you.’ When you ask them how long they have been learning the local language for, they’ll reply.

“Ever since I arrived.”

They arrived in the country last week.

Real Super-Travellers are born, not made. You can learn from them, but you’ll never quite get there

3. The Selfie Traveller

This traveller does not go overseas to meet interesting people or experience new cultures. The main aim of this traveller’s trip is to head to beautiful and iconic locations, turn their back to them and take a photo of their head in front of them. The Selfie Traveller does not really care what such places look like, as long as they look good standing in front of them.Their enjoyment of any given trip is measured by the amount of Facebook likes and Instagram followers they collected along the way

4. The Glam Traveller

While you have tomato sauce stains on your shirt, dirt under your fingernails and a sweat mustache, the Glam-Traveller looks like they just stepped out of a magazine. Not only do they have glossy hair and nice teeth, they also appear not to sweat, while everyone else around them is wringing out their pit patches. Spend a bit of time with a Glam Traveller though, and you’ll see they spend no more time on grooming than you do. They just wake up looking like that, and stay looking like that, all day.

Take heart. Glam Travellers are a rare breed. The rest of us look like shit too.

5.  The Everyone’s Mate Traveller

Within half an hour of checking into a hostel The Everyone’s Mate Traveller knows all the staff and most of the guests by name and has organised a beer-pong tournament. Everyone’s Mate can walk into bar alone, knowing no-one, and leave with invitations from seven different groups of people to come travel with them.

Everyone’s Mate mangles the local language, but hey have a crack at it with such charm that they can be found laughing and joking with locals everywhere they go.

6. The Born-Again Hippie Traveller

This person works in either a bank or for an insurance company at home. Whilst on their big overseas trip, they somehow got invited to a Rainbow Gathering, had an epiphany and decided what they are really meant to be is a ‘free spirit’. Now they walk around barefoot, draped in colourful scarfs, clutching a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth.” The Born-Again Hippie Traveller likes to use words like ‘energy’ , ‘vibe’ and ‘fully’.

They will hug you even when you don’t feel like a hug.

They recently paid $30 for a Finnish backpacker to dreadlock their hair.

One day soon, their money will run out, they’ll go home, cut of their dreads, return to work and those rainbow fisherman pants they’ve been wearing for a month without washing will gather dust in their Dad’s garage.

7. The Know-it-all Traveller

The Know-it-all Traveller fancies themselves a Super- Traveller (see 2.) but in reality, is nothing of the sort. They take great pleasure in topping any story you might have however they fail to realise the difference between telling a good travel tale and boring everyone shitless with a long-winded saga. The Know-it-all Traveller tends to have a loud voice and can be found at hostel bars, interrupting conversations and giving out unwanted advice with a patronising tone.

Learning a language? You are doing it wrong and they know a better way.

Going somewhere? Ha! They have already been and you are going at the wrong time of year.

Just had lunch? Nobody eats there any more. They know a much better restaurant, ’cause, they are just good at this travelling thing.

When they tell you they paid $14 for a taxi from the airport and you only paid $11, smile inwardly but don’t say a word

8. The Party-Animal Traveller

The Party-animal traveller views the world as just one giant, global pub-crawl. Sure they like to see all those sights that everyone talks about, as long as those sights can be seen from the window of the bar. They rate a destination based mostly on how cheap the beer is and how lax the drug laws are.

Your most memorable nights away will feature a party-animal traveller.

Spend too much time with them and you’ll find yourself in a situation where you are bribing a police man.

They should be your first point of call for advice on which local beer is best.

9. The “I’m not a tourist I’m a traveller” Traveller

This traveller considers themselves a true ‘traveller’ and loves to fire the question, “Are you a tourist or a traveller?” at every person they meet.

You’ll stumble over your words,

“Ummm, well, this trip I am backpacking on my own, but last year I went to an all-inclusive resort in Fiji for Mum’s 50^th birthday so ummm I’m not sure.”

No one else around really knows (or cares) what exactly it is that differentiates a ‘tourist’ from a ‘traveller’ but this traveller is determined to put everyone they meet into one of two categories. Beware if they decide you fall into the ‘tourist’ category. You will be shunned.

10. Why is this person travelling? Traveller.

This traveller hates all things foreign. They pride themselves on only having eaten western-style meals since leaving home, avoiding all that weird, foreign food all together. After making zero effort to learn even a few words of the local language, they will go through their trip with a constant feeling of irritation that the local people “barely know a word of English”. They will huff and puff about how such crowded buses would never be allowed where they are from and rave on about the fact that where they are from is cleaner, better ran, more organised and generally superior in every way.

Despite all this, they insist that they love to travel and already have their next destination planned.

Have you come across any of these people while travelling, or do you see a bit of some of them in yourself? Are there any others you’d like to add?