Backpacking goes mainstream in Lady Antebellum music video
When you look over your travel photos, do you linger more on the people shots more than the location pictures? I know I do. It’s an experience that’s happened to me over and over again. I go to a place excited to see famous landmarks. Yet after the trip, it’s the new friends and fun memories that stay in my head.
The country music group Lady Antebellum put backpacking front and center in their music video for “Just a Kiss,” the lead single for their album “Own the Night.” The concept is that two young travelers meet, then fall in love as they see the world together. But like all backpackers, they’re from different places and on different schedules. Knowing their time together is limited, they try to live for the moment.
If you’ve backpacked around Europe, you’ll have fun trying to identify the countries and cities the couple wanders through. Watching the video triggered memories. I once spent a magical day walking around Rome with a girl I’d met at my hostel. We saw all the sights and took pictures together all over the city. Later, she checked out of the hostel but wasn’t able to reach me, so she wrote me a note and left it on my bed. I was sad that I never got to say goodbye to her.
Have you ever had an experience like that? Please share your stories in the comments.
“Behind the scenes” video from the official Lady Antebellum website:
P.S. I discovered “Just a Kiss” after watching this wonderful cover version by Ebony Day.
January 6th, 2012 at 9:22 am
Travelers who seek out the company of other travelers when they are abroad wind up as much in a bubble as anyone who goes to Club Med. You will be less inclined to interact with the locals the and locals will be less inclined to approach you.
Falling in love in Rome may be intoxicating, but you will miss a whole lot of Italy — and Italians — when you do.
January 6th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
One of my most memorable experiences was getting off a bus at an oasis in the Libyan desert and having a strange, beautiful blonde Norwegian girl run up to me, kiss me, and whisper in my ear “Can you please quickly put this ring on and pretend you are my husband? I’ve been telling the locals my husband is arriving so they would leave me alone.” The ring fit perfectly 🙂 We had some great laughs and awesome times ‘pretending’ to be married for the locals for a week.
January 6th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Rod, that sounds like a dream come true. Davis, I hear you, but not so fast. If the traveler you meet is of a different nationality than you, it can be a mutually wonderful experience. Since you aren’t that familiar with each others culture, learning about a new place to both of you, simultaneously, can be rewarding. I once met a young and single Chinese woman in Prague, who was there for the first time, as well, and it was quite interesting learning about each others culture at the same time we were learning about Prague. I would definitely say we knew our time together was limited and we tried to “live for the moment” more so than usual. We were both in our twenties, and it was a rare and special time of life. Very memorable. That happened a little over twenty years ago, and I wouldn’t say that I was in a bubble.
January 7th, 2012 at 2:25 am
Yep, makes me nostalgic for Europe. I like that song, but hadn’t seen the music video.
One summer I was living in a flat, five minutes stroll, from the Seine River in Paris, attending a month long writing course. For the evening I’d been given an assignment to flâneur. So I decided to take a route I’d never been and came upon a heap of abandoned books–in English, Spanish and French– just sitting next to a rubbish bag. A local male Parisian, covered head to toe in plaster dust, found me sitting cross legged between the bags of books jotting things down in my moleskin. At first he walked pasted me, a plastic bucket in each hand. But then turned and asked “You found treasures?” before invited me out for a drink after he’d cleaned up a bit. Before setting off exploring, together we sat on the corner while he helped translate the French titles I didn’t understand. Several hours of canoodling and exploring the city later, we parted ways.