Ben Alvisini, who goes by backpackingwithben on TikTok, was born in Ireland, then his family moved to Australia when he was four. He grew up in Sydney and on Australia’s beachy Central Coast. Working in a call centre in Sydney, he found himself working with a lot of young backpackers who told him about how amazing it was to travel solo. At first, the idea made him a little anxious. “I had this feeling about being the only queer guy in a hostel, and not making friends if I was put in a hostel full of blokes,” says Alvisini, who is 20.
But last year, he went on a two-month trip to Asia, which totally changed his mind. After a few months of working to earn money for more travel, he’s already planning another Asian trip, this time for six months. “I never got hate-crimed or had any shit experiences,” he says in a TikTok post. “All the guys travelling were super chill and nice. If I can do it, literally anyone else can.”
Wander+Lust asked Alvisini about how he manages his budget to travel for months at a time, how he meets other queer people and the funniest thing that’s happened to him.
Where did you go on your first trip as a solo backpacker?
Last year I went to Thailand, starting in Bangkok, then going north to Chiang Mai and spending two weeks in North Thailand. Then I flew to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and made my way from the south up to the north in about three weeks. Then I spent two weeks in Japan, then headed back to Thailand and visited the south. I’m planning to head off to Asia again next month for six months.
Australians are known for their long backpacking trips, partly because they want to maximize their return on investment with the cost of flights, which can be very expensive. What’s your strategy for taking long trips?
I want to stay travelling as long as possible. I’m not interested in going to as many countries as I can, ticking them off a list. I love the idea of visiting places that might not be visited as much, to see a lot of places in a country before moving on to the next place. I think that backpacking in Asia is really different from backpacking in Europe because you don’t have to book ahead—it’s easy to book places at the last minute. I thought I would have to plan all these things in advance, and when I got there, no one I met had a single thing planned. You can meet people and then decide to go to a new country the very next week because the flights are cheap, even at the last minute. If I was doing Europe, I could not do that. So I like that in Asia, I can be very spontaneous about it.
How do you manage your budget?
The golden rule for Asia is to have about AU$2,000 per month. If you’re going to go backpacking like me, staying in hostels, staying in dorms, you can eat out every day with that. You can have experiences and whatnot. You can’t be staying in hotels, doing bougie things. I use an app called TravelSpend that lets you enter what you spend each day, so you can look back at what you’ve spent and keep track of it. I will say that when I was travelling, my money disappeared quite quickly. I was like, wow, everybody is telling me it’s so cheap, so I wasn’t really worrying about it too much. My money disappeared quite fast.
How are you going to avoid that on your next trip?
I’ve started teaching English online. I teach about 20 students, so I’ve got an income while I’m travelling. It’s going to be a more stable situation.
How do you manage your meals? Do you ever cook, or on the other side of things, do you ever splurge?
The best way you can experience the culture and the food is through the street food. In Southeast Asia, the more expensive food is western food. McDonald’s is usually the most expensive place to get food, which is mind blowing to some people.
When I was a young backpacker, I remember how straight Australian guys would kind of take over the hostels they were staying at, being loud and rowdy, which always made me uneasy. Is that still the case?
That’s very true. It’s typically Aussie men and the Brits that are, I’m not going to say loud but who probably intimidated me the most. They’re not necessarily more homophobic, but there’s a little bit of toxic masculinity there. I don’t go out of my way to approach those kinds of guys, but I’m still friendly. Usually I’ll approach girls or guys that I feel I would connect well with. No one has ever been really rude to me. I do masc myself up a bit when I’m around straight guys. I think every gay man does that. But they usually stick with their own friends—there will be other people you’ll mesh with. There’s absolutely no reason to let it hold you back.
I do find hostel culture to be incredibly straight. I’m not gonna lie. I very rarely came across other gay men, which was a bit sad. I did have women come up to men in hostels, and they’d be “Slay!” and we’d have some banter. I actually befriended a straight guy and his girlfriend, and we got on so well. As gay men, we can really judge and be closed off to making friends with straight guys, but obviously not all of them are jerks.
How do you meet other queer people when you’re travelling?
I joined a Facebook group, LGBTQ+ Backpackers—Meet Queer Travellers. It’s actually amazing. They have WhatsApp group chats that you can go on to connect with people in different countries. I have also used dating apps. I met someone on a dating app in Phuket. We went out clubbing and had a lot of fun, just as friends. He was travelling with friends, so we explored the nightlife and some drag bars together. He messaged me recently. He said I inspired him to go travelling solo, which is really cool because he was a bit older than me.
I usually make friends in hostels in the moment. When you arrive in the dorm room, you introduce yourself, which is the custom—you’re going to be sleeping alongside them. I’ve met a lot of people like that and in various common areas. You can just be sneaky with it and ask someone, “Do you know where this is?” Then it’s, “When did you get here? How long have you been travelling for?” Once you meet them, you might go get a drink at the bar. You just need to meet one person and then you’ll keep meeting people.
And for romance and sex?
I’m open to it. Always. I’m on the apps. I hooked up with someone in Thailand and in Japan. It’s just like when I’m here in Sydney. If it comes my way, I’m down. I’m usually in a hostel, though, so I can’t host.
Is there a place that surprised you with how queer it was?
Koh Tao in Thailand had the most amazing drag show, Queens Cabaret (Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, Suratthani, Thailand). It was the best drag I’ve ever seen, and that’s coming from someone who would go to Oxford Street in Sydney every single night and who knows the queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race.
What’s been your favourite travel moment?
I met two really lovely girls, one from Ireland, one from the U.S., in the hostel room I was staying at in Pai in North Thailand. Funnily enough, the hostel room we were staying in flooded, so we had to move to another room. We all went out for lunch together. That was where I learned how to drive a motorbike. We would drive around and explore the town and go to all the attractions. I met up with them again in Japan.
What was the funniest moment?
This is an example of backpacking in Asia and how just chaotic it can be. Me and these two girls—twins—were staying in Sa Pa, in northwestern Vietnam. We had just finished a trek through the rice fields and were staying at a homestay with a woman who was part of a local tribe. We were heading back to the main town to get a bus to our next destination. They had already booked their bus, but my bus was later. I was just like, “Oh my God, I wish I could go with you girls.” So I went to the booking place and asked if they could fit me on their bus. No English and they didn’t understand what I said through Google Translate. Everyone’s yelling at everyone. I get on the bus and I find out I don’t even have a seat, so I have to lay on the floor for the whole trip. Five hours next to my friends’ feet, which was not fun. I didn’t sleep, but that’s okay. That’s a part of budget backpacking.
What are your backpacking essentials?
I would bring a spare phone, if you have one, just in case you lose yours. Compressible packing cubes. Because when you’re living out of a backpack and you’re buying things, you’ve got to compress everything so you’ve got space. If you’re travelling in Asia, you don’t need a water bottle because you can’t drink the water. Put your passport in a plastic sandwich bag.
Do you have to change your fashion sense because you just don’t have the room to carry around your ideal wardrobe?
When I’m home and heading into the city, I love to get all dressed up and look nice. When you’re backpacking, you don’t have the luxury of getting all dressed up in fresh clothes every day. You want to pack clothes that you’re happy with if they get ruined. I’ve had everything on my clothes—mud from playing with elephants, vomit from nights out. Like, literally everything.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
