About

About

Welcome to Backpackingmatt.com – Life’s a Journey.

At Backpackingmatt.com, we offer budget conscious travelers and backpackers destination specific advice, stories of adventure and exploration, travel reviews, and inspiration to get out and travel the world.

If you started at day one in the archives, you’d find posts that were written in the basic, travelogue update format for mates and family; this is how it all began. And then…

About Matt

Matt in Thailand

Matt in Thailand

Back in 2007, I graduated from the University of Iowa with a BA in Political Science. The world was my oyster. Knowing I wasn’t quite ready to settle down with your basic 9-5er, I opted to instead travel to Ireland and then the UK on a working holiday. The plan? Four months working and traveling in Ireland, followed by six months working and traveling in Scotland before spending a quick two months traveling around mainland Europe.

Some 16 months later, I returned home not ready to settle down but rather with a new found appreciation for experiencing the unknown.

I spent some time working and saving while living in Washington, DC, before setting off to New Zealand on another working holiday. I launched Backpackingmatt.com prior to leaving the states for the second time and began to focus on building this website as more of a travel resource for the independent traveler and less of a daily trip update. If you follow the archives, you’ll see the progression from one style to another.

Check out some of the most popular posts on Backpackingmatt.com:

I spent my first 12 months backpacking in New Zealand exploring both the North and South Islands before ultimately ending up in beautiful Queenstown.

New Zealand has become my temporary base. Queenstown my temporary home.

It’s a terribly addictive place and one where I have decided to base myself for the time being. When I’m not working on this website or one of the others which occupy my time, I’m out riding my mountain bike, going hiking and generally enjoying living in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

In an effort to provide you with more diverse budget travel advice, Backpackingmatt.com took on a contributing author at the beginning of 2011.

Lauren Fritsky

Lauren Fritsky

Lauren Fritsky

Lauren Fritsky grew up at the Jersey Shore and spent nine years in Philadelphia before moving to Sydney in January 2010. She’s since gone diving in the Great Barrier Reef, learned to surf in the Tasman Sea, island hopped outside Auckland and eaten bull frog in China.

Her writing has appeared on CNN, AOL Travel, USA Today and other major web sites in addition to various print publications in the U.S. Follow her adventures at The Life That Broke.

Be sure to find her on Twitter (@LaurenFritsky) and on Facebook.

Backpackingmatt.com is dedicated to giving you tips on how to travel the world and showing how living an alternative, unconventional life can be satisfying, rewarding and realistic.

For updates, follow me on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook and if you’d like to get in touch, please feel free to email me at matt at backpackingmatt dot com.