Breaking: Young adult goes travelling, does not post to social media at all

Modest traveller manages to enjoy trip without social reassurance

By Chandler Walter, Humour Editor

He went on the trip of a lifetime, and enjoyed it solely from the experiences he gained, the people he met, and all the things he saw.

In a striking turn of events, 21-year-old traveller Jack Thompson travelled across the world and managed to keep everything that he had done off of social media.

Thompson, a graduate of Pinetree Secondary School, had decided to go on extended vacation after saving up enough money working at a local coffee shop since graduating.

“I always knew I wanted to travel before starting post-secondary,” Thompson said in an email interview, “to really see the world and figure out what it was that I wanted to become. So I just started saving up.”

Thompson went on a half-year excursion, during which he backpacked across Europe, surfed in Australia, partied in Thailand. He even disagreed with the treatment of elephants as transport vehicles, and the drugging of lions in local zoos, but never posted his feelings on the matters.

What was most astonishing about Thompson’s entire experience was not what he saw, but what he didn’t show. The young man somehow spent the entirety of his trip off of social media, even though he had a working iPhone and full data plan.

“I just, I wanted to experience these things for myself, not for anyone else,” Thompson admitted. “If I decided to do something during my trip, I didn’t want how cool it would look on Instagram or Snapchat to influence that decision.”

Thompson also admits that while he did take many pictures on his trip, he didn’t think that any of them were all that interesting to people who did not participate in the experience.

“Why would I post a picture of the Eiffel tower? People know what it looks like, and a picture taken from my iPhone 5c will have nothing on some of the amazing pictures that have been taken of it professionally. I did take a selfie with it in the background, but that’s just so I can remember it.”

Thompson kept a journal during his trip, documenting every where he went and all the people that he met. When asked if he was thinking about turning his entries into blog postings, Thompson explained that he had no intentions of publicizing his experiences.

“I had a good enough time just being there, just living it. My friends know that I was there, and if they ask, I have some pictures to show them, or some great stories to tell them over beers. Doing it that way just feels a bit more human, doesn’t it?”