Youth

The above statements, which are extracted from interviews with young Australian travellers, are demonstrative of the types of reflexive identity construction many young people are engaged in today. Drawn from studies of the global backpacking culture, which examine travel as a rite of passage in the lives of contemporary Western youth (for further discussion see Matthews, 2008; Matthews, 2014), these interviewee reflections associate global mobility with an accumulation of experience and, simultaneously, the deferral of responsibility. What is clear from this is that international travel is seen as a means of embracing opportunity and crafting a future personhood, or adult self, which is both experienced and, importantly, fulfilled. One gets the sense that such future fulfilment rests on making the most of youth by making the 'right' choices. Indeed, travel is constructed here as a youthful choice" as an alternative to 'settling down' or to the decisions (mortgage, house, career and kids) that are deemed symbolic of adult status.