Abstract
Backpacking is a subculture of tourism often populated by young adults looking for a "rite of passage" between childhood and adulthood. Using performance as a method of inquiry, this essay explores this practice by tracing the author's participation in and observation of backpacking in Europe in the summers of 2000 and 2001. Scholarship on tourism seems particularly invested in issues of authenticity, and current research argues that authenticity is a social construction that varies in meaning with each tourist. Based on a performance studies perspective, this essay argues that authenticity is not only a social construction but a performed achievement where each backpacker pieces together his or her own unique "rite of passage." Themes analyzed include the scripts, costumes, and props of backpacking; escaping the "tourist bubble;" the tourist gaze; post-tourism, and reminiscing as critical tourism.
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