In commonsense understanding of growing up this goes without saying: the travels of youth tourists are somehow part of the transition to adulthood. Insights into the psychic dimensions of this process are provided by descriptions and reflections of novelists. The first German novel with the sub-title "a psychological novel", which appeared in the second half of the eighteenth century, reflects the importance of travel for the hero's relation to the world, and it does this already in the hero's name, which is also the title of the novel: Anton Reiser (Anthony Traveller). Karl Philipp Moritz, the author, was the editor of one of the first German psychological periodicals.

For most of the developmental psychologists of the twentieth century the topic "travel"" seems to have been too mundane. One of the exceptions was Kurt Lewin. Lewin thought of the psychic life in spatial concepts: "life space" with more or less structured "regions", "paths", "boundaries" and "locomotions" (Lewin, 1935; 1951). His theory, which conceptualized the inner life in spatial metaphors, kept in mind the literal meaning of "life space" and, especially important for the topic of this paper, "the region of free movement" with its changing shape and importance during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

The findings of the research on youth tourism that will be reported here, make sense as an expression of the adolescent drive to expand the "region of free movement". The widening of the "life space" in youth tourism involves not only hitherto unknown geographical areas but also unknown, strange social situations. A rough schema of the typical life space of adolescents will help us to understand the "topology" of youth tourism. (It should be noted that Lewinian concepts are adopted here only for the sake of describing behaviour and inner dynamics; the mathematical implications of Lewin's "topology" are disregarded.)

Adolescent life space

The life space of an adolescent typically includes two large regions with strong adult control: family and school/work. Areas with a greater amount of free movement are the overlapping regions of leisure activities and peer group life. Independent physical mobility , e.g. riding one's own bike, provides in later childhood already a possibility to escape periodically from the control of the adults and to appropriate at the same time "the world" beyond the familiar life space. Adolescents make a ritualistic use of motorcycles and cars to assure themselves of their expanding region of free movement (cf. Goldberg, 1969; Csikszentmihalyl & Larson, 1984; Schönhammer, 1991).

Of course, the permeability of the boundaries between the different regions within the life space and of the boundary to the "outer" world, that is to unknown/strange places or situations, is not the same for all (cultural, national, social) groups of adolescents. These differences and those of gender and individual personality will be bracketed here. This will help to understand what youth tourism typically means for adolescent life space.

It is useful to distinguish between three forms of juvenile tourism: travel with the family; organized youth tourism; and, finally, unorganized youth tourism. Adolescents touring with their family may experience their situation as even more "childish" than that of their everyday life: family life rules the day. For adults/parents this is a well-known source of holiday stress. Adolescent members of the family often become "homesick" for their peer group. Organized youth tourism provides new peers , perhaps even from different nations. But there are adult officials, and typically only a small range of independent mobility is permitted. Unorganized youth tourism leaves behind all forms of adult control: independent mobility beyond the boundary of known/familiar places and social situations is possible now, The price for this unusual freedom is a loss of physical and social security.

Exploration of unorganized youth tourism

Two investigations (one in youth hostels and one in railway stations and on trains) were undertaken to determine how young backpack tourists in Europe experience the freedom of unorganized youth tourism.

Youth hostels

In the first study, carried out in 1984 , visitors to Bavarian youth hostels (in Munich and in Prien) were asked to write compositions on "Encounters with people from foreign nations and cultures: personal experiences." In addition, partly prestructured interviews were conducted on the same topic. Altogether 64 compositions of young tourists from 11 European and overseas countries - most of them written in English -could be gathered, and 70 travellers were interviewed. The material was analyzed by means of qualitative content analysis. The detailed report on the investigation (Schönhammer, 1987) makes reference to a number of sources in English.

In what follows, essential features of the reported experiences will be presented and briefly illustrated.

The international peer group

The young travellers' reports of their experiences partly express a deep fascination, but there are also young tourists depicting the situation of travel encounters with (ironically!) "distance" as somehow boring. A few examples will illustrate these different evaluations. A male British traveller writes:

A female Canadian student also appreciates the possibility of meeting people in youth hostels:

The following remarks of a British girl express a comparatively sober view of the encounters:

Whether fascinated or sober, most of the compositions state that the "encounters with people from foreign nations and cultures" in general consist of conversations with other young tourists. The backpackers travelling across Europe in summertime seem to constitute a tremendous international peer group. The "feeling of solidarity" within this group can be understood as a way of coping with the ambivalence of free movement in strange space:

the strange is dialectically transformed into familiarity. How does this work? The "trick" of this magic transformation (as expressed by "feeling of solidarity") is a kind of emotional resonance: mutual empathy for the affective ambivalence of freedom.

Those who have experienced this situation a number of times tend to a more sober, discriminating view. They critically reflect that the life space of youth tourists is somehow "extraterritorial" in relation to the visited foreign countries, and the constant repetition of the international peer group's small talk bores them.

Language barriers

A closer look at the communication within the international peer groups has to take into account the language barrier. Of course, some of the young tourists speak foreign languages quite well. For them, the conversation with fellow travellers may be a welcome opportunity to prove their skill. But fluent conversations between travellers with different native languages are an exception. The experience of limited conversations is often described. A male American writes:

Being "anxious to meet people like you", the young travellers manage to communicate "even if you can't speak much together". As a male British student puts it:

Mutual empathy becomes necessary in a technical sense if the young travellers want to maintain communication beyond the language barrier; The effort to communicate non-verbally thus may involve a deepening of emotional resonance. The language barrier is sometimes described as a chance for encounters of an especially vivid character to occur. A female American student states:

A male fellow countryman adds:

Of course, there are also some who tend to a critical view of the value of limited verbal communication atone. Nevertheless, we can conclude that, paradoxically, the language barrier contributes to the feeling of togetherness in the international peer group of unorganized youth tourism in Europe.

Exchange of addresses

The high degree of mobility gives the meetings a transitory character. Should the magic togetherness definitely end with the farewell? A seemingly practical answer to this question is the swapping of addresses: "In the end, we all exchanged addresses and swore to meet one another again some day". This way, one is able to uphold the feeling of togetherness in the very moment of parting company. That is why the exchange of addresses is common practice. The ritual is fulfilled in the act of exchanging the addresses. A later use of the address is an exception. Letters are seldom written and even more rarely answered. Sometimes, addresses collected are used during later journeys or handed to friends planning a trip. The outcome of such a pragmatic use of a ritualistic practice's broken pledge is uncertain.

Trains and railway stations

As for the places where young tourists meet and where we could meet them, the compositions and interviews of the first study drew our attention to trains and railway stations as important venues. It turned out that this fact is due to the system of Interrail (available to young people from continental countries) and Eurail tickets (for tourists from overseas countries). In a second step of research on unorganized youth tourism in Europe this mode of travel was explored (Schönhammer, 1989 a; 1989 b) This time the field work was carried out mostly in railway stations and trains. Methods used were: the task to sketch a rough map of Europe and to indicate the route followed so far and what was still planned, interviews, questionnaires with open-ended questions, participant observation. The respondents to the questionnaire consisted of 160 users and 55 non-users of Interrail/Eurail tickets.

Stressful restlessness

The sketch maps of travel routes show that, on an average, interrailing travellers covered 6,000 km and visited twelve locations, whereas the average for young people of the comparison group was 2,700 km and seven locations. It is worth noting that only 20% of the interrailers cover more than 7,000 km (the "record" in the sample was 13,500 km). This fact and statements by the interviewees prove that for the majority of the interrailing travellers the mere possibility of free movement in the European network of railways is more important than a price - distance calculation for a planned route. In any case, the average of 6,000 km covered and twelve locations visited seems to be enough to make the journey rather stressful. Besides "unfriendly people" (i.e. adult inhabitants of the visited countries) and "problems of finding accommodation", "discomfort of the train journey" is one of the most frequently mentioned negative experiences of the trip: each category occurs in 24% of the questionnaires of the interrailers. In the comparison group "unfriendly people" is also a frequently reported frustration (29%), but complaints about "discomfort of the train journey" and "problems of finding accommodation are seldom mentioned (6% for each category).

Interrailing tourists not only cover larger distances by train . They often try to sleep on trains and in railway stations. The typical atmosphere of railway stations is appreciated by many of the young people in the comparison group (43%), but it does not attract many of the young people in the interrailing group (11%). The whole atmosphere of constant arrival and departure has no attraction for someone who is using the railway station as "surrogate" accommodation. However, this predicament contributes to the sociability of the international peer group, which has been referred to above: "There is almost a feeling of solidarity - we are in this together: for better or for worse."

There is another way in which the young people of the interrailing group and those of the comparison group differ. Only 14% of the interrailers like hitch-hiking as against 38% of the comparison group. They fear the insecurities and uncertainties of hitch-hiking. Insecurity and the fear of isolation also seem to be anticipated by the decision to travel with a friend or a couple of friends. : only 8% of the female and 16% of the male interrailers travel alone as against 18% and 25% in the comparison group. Members of the local (back home) peer group take part in the adventure of independent mobility. Thus the risks associated with free movement in a strange space is reduced from the beginning.

Buying the interrail or Eurail ticket is a magic conquest of Europe. This is very attractive for novices in independent travel: "Many first time travellers are imperialists at heart: they yearn for territory", as the American "Let's go Europe" states critically.. The attempt to keep up with the imaginary appropriation of geographical space results in a stressful restlessness. Nevertheless, the experience is fascinating, even if many of them confess, next time they will try to make a less stressful use of the ticket. Next time? Less than 10% of the interrailing young people gave an affirmative answer the question whether they had already travelled in this way before. Thus we can conclude that the interrail ticket is extremely attractive for the first venture into unorganized independent travel, but that it reinforces a restlessness that is characteristic of novices in independent travel. The ticket is not very attractive for later trips. Relaxation, a typical aim of adult/family tourism, is looked at with other eyes after the experience of an interrail tour.

Cross-cultural aspects

Both studies involved young people from different European and overseas countries. The differences between the national groups have been bracketed so far. One of these differences will now be mentioned and discussed, though only briefly.

To begin with, a remark must be made about the problem of identifying cultural/national differences. Experiences with "people from foreign nations and cultures" were explicitly asked for in the first study. The interviews and compositions showed that this task evokes a fundamental ambivalence. On the one hand knowledge of the mentality of foreign people is valued. Such knowledge proves that one is able to understand different culture patterns. This ability of the experienced traveller is supposed to contribute also to reflecting on his/her own cultural/national identity. On the other hand, a critical view of the judgments made about foreigners as being perhaps no more than inadmissible generalizations about a whole group of persons, is indispensable for an enlightened person. This ambivalence is rooted in fundamental values of modern Western culture. Therefore it is met not only in the thoughts of (young) tourists but also in the research programs of social scientists (e.g. in the study of prejudice; for further discussion of this controversial topic see Bateson, 1972 and Schönhammer, 1987).

When the two investigations were under way, a relatively large number of young people from North America travelled with Eurail passes. This may be one of the reasons why the specific mentality of young citizens of the U.S.A. was often mentioned by other tourists. There are two complementary judgments about them that keep on recurring: "They are very open" and "They are very superficial". The "easy going American" is experienced on the one hand as a catalyst for the togetherness in the international peer group, but on the other hand it is the same element that is evaluated as a lack of affective engagement. The different meanings of "openness" as well as "friendship" for Europeans and for Americans have been described before, e.g. by Kurt :Lewin, shortly after his emigration from Germany to the U.S.A. (Lewin, 1948; cf. Erikson, 1960). The "easy going" interpersonal style of the young Americans is sometimes reflected in the compositions of the American travellers in the sample: Americans tend, for example, to comment on the language barrier with a theory of "Smiling - the international language".

Conclusions

Young people independently travelling through the European network of youth hostels and railways, constitute, as described above, an international peer group which provides a feeling of familiarity among a world of strangers. This they find fascinating. Looked at dispassionately and from some distance, the evaluation of this companionship with numberless others seems to be: less could have been more. The Interrail/Eurail ticket provides the possibility of freedom (and relative security) of movement in many European countries. This offer meets the adolescent wish for independent appropriation of the world. The stressful realization of the offered possibilities again transforms fascination. Again the question arises: could less not have been more?

Seen in this light, the described form of youth tourism is not only a step in the transition to adulthood but also a step in a kind of tourist career. Pearce (1088) suggested a career ladder based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs (from physiological needs like relaxation to security, love and belongingness, and finally self-actualisation). The career step which is hinted at in our findings does not fit in this ladder. Relaxation, for example, as a typical aim of adult tourism, becomes attractive after the stressful realization of "higher order" needs. Leaving behind juvenile forms of tourism is therefore not just a mark of "progress" but also a loss. After having adopted adult forms of tourism, there may well be nostalgia for the feeling of solidarity in the international peer group.

© Max van Manen, 2002
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