About Take Your Backpack

A Global Backpacking Guide Built for Independent Travelers

Take Your Backpack was created to help independent travelers explore the world with more confidence, better information, and fewer expensive mistakes.

Combining three decades of backpacking experience with extensive research and editorial curation, Take Your Backpack provides practical guidance for travelers who want to go beyond generic tourism advice. The focus is simple: honest information, realistic expectations, and helping people make better decisions on the road.

Today, the platform covers the most important travel highlights in more than 190 countries and continues expanding every year, with the long-term goal of becoming one of the world’s most comprehensive resources for independent travelers.

By the Numbers

Thousands of destinations. One goal: helping independent travelers explore the world with confidence.

🌍 224 Countries Covered

Destination guides and travel information spanning every region of the world.

📍 Thousands of Destinations

From world-famous landmarks to lesser-known places, the platform continues to expand with deeper coverage every year.

🎒 30 Years Experience

Decades of independent travel experience and a lifelong passion for exploring the world.

🔍 Independent and Unsponsored

Recommendations are based on experience, research, and editorial judgment—not paid placements or sponsored partnerships.

Meet the Founder

Take Your Backpack was founded by Johan 🇳🇱, a lifelong backpacker with more than three decades of travel experience.

What began as a personal passion project has gradually evolved into a global travel platform covering thousands of destinations across more than 190 countries. Over the years, the vision remained unchanged: to create travel guides that are genuinely useful, practical, and built around the needs of independent travelers.

Today, Take Your Backpack combines firsthand travel experience, extensive research, and editorial curation to help travelers plan smarter and explore the world with confidence.

On our way to the Pyramids of Meroë (Johan. - BW-grey BG)

Our Principles

Practical Information First

Travelers need more than beautiful photos and generic bucket lists. The goal is to provide information that helps people make smarter decisions before and during their journeys.
Whether it’s understanding transportation options, budgeting realistically, deciding how much time a destination deserves, or determining whether a place is worth the detour, practical information always comes first.

Honest Trade-Offs

No destination is perfect. Rather than presenting every place as equally amazing, Take Your Backpack focuses on realistic expectations and balanced recommendations. Understanding both the strengths and limitations of a destination leads to better decisions and ultimately better travel experiences. Within each country, all highlights are categorized and ranked so you can quickly identify the most important places, while still having room to explore lesser-known spots.

Built for Independent Travelers

Take Your Backpack is designed for travelers who value flexibility, curiosity, and authentic experiences. Whether you’re planning a weekend city break, a month-long adventure, or a journey around the world, the underlying philosophy remains the same: travel should be accessible, rewarding, and driven by genuine discovery.

Your support makes Take Your Backpack possible.
Every guide you buy, or booking you make through our links, helps us continue maintaining and improving this platform for independent travelers everywhere. Thank you for your support! 🙏

Three Decades of Travel Experiences

Over the years, journeys have led across deserts, mountains, coastlines, ancient cities, and remote landscapes throughout the world.

The photographs below represent only a small part of the experiences that have shaped Take Your Backpack and continue to inspire the platform today.

Photos from the road

Become a Partner

Take Your Backpack reaches thousands of independent travelers and backpackers every month who are actively planning their next overland journey or extended trip. We offer structured advertising options, including native sponsored articles within our backpacking blog and dedicated resource placements on our comprehensive country hubs.

If your brand, product, or service provides genuine utility to independent travelers, we would love to explore a partnership.

View Media Kit & Rates

✈️ The backpacker research shortcutCountry Travel Guides

An offline-friendly backpacking guide with optimized travel routes, ranked highlights, transport advice, and the best areas to stay.

example page 0 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

example page 1 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

example page 2 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

example page 3 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

example page 4 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

example page 5 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

example page 6 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

example page 7 from our offline Travel Guide for Brazil

The digital guide (100+ pages) contains:
✅ 100's of highlights, ranked by travel appeal
✅ 3 optimized ready-to-use backpacking routes
✅ Cities, national parks, landmarks, beaches
✅ How to get around
✅ Offline-friendly for travel without Wi-Fi
👉 Click to see all 30+ guide features

📅 Plan smarter in minutes, not weeks
✅ Month by month travel advice
✅ Festivals & national holidays
✅ Budget expectations

🗺️ Go to the right places, skip the overrated ones
✅ Honest pros & cons of destinations
✅ Top hikes, parks & viewpoints
✅ Lesser-known places most travelers miss
✅ Clear “worth it vs skip it” guidance

🛏️ Travel smoothly without rookie mistakes
✅ Best areas to stay
✅ Transport systems explained simply
✅ Common scams & safety advice
✅ SIM cards, money & practical tips

🌍 Understand the country, not just visit it
✅ Culture & traditions
✅ 52 Essential phrases & customs
✅ Festivals worth planning around
✅ Traveler-friendly historical context
✅ Insights that make places more meaningful

📱 Built for real travel conditions
✅ Fully downloadable PDF
✅ Works completely offline
✅ Optimized for phone use
✅ Useful in remote areas & buses
✅ Everything in one place

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Best Backpacking
Travel Advisor
2025

What others say about Take Your Backpack Guides:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fantastic, amazing amount of information!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My goodness this is amazing, it's what I've been looking for hats off too you!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I think this is absolutely BRILLIANT

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Very complete and informative. It's still missing places, but I gotta to commend you

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is truly amazing, thank you, can't wait to explore it with my kids!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Awesome resource, thank you!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is amazing! Can't wait to explore the ones I haven't seen

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I love this! Well done, great idea.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thanks for taking the time to make this gem!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This might be the best website I've ever seen.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Congratulations, and thank you so much for your work; it's incredibly valuable.

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In all seriousness I think you did a great job pointing out the important spots

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10/10 very good

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As someone who's only just starting to visit regularly this is awesome, thank you.

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Thank you very much! I'm going to visit my dad, it's going to be very useful!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is really cool! We'll be travelling for the first time and this definitely come in handy.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

You are now our minister of culture, congratulations 👨‍💼

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Just wanted to tell you that this is a pearl! Going to follow your recommendations.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is so cool. I'll definitely be using the resource for my travels soon.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is very impressive! Good work.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is an amazing and informative site. Very well done!

Travel Tips for backpackersBackpack like a pro

Looking Ahead

Take Your Backpack continues to expand with new destinations, updated travel guides, and deeper coverage across every continent.

The long-term vision is simple: to build one of the world’s most comprehensive and trusted resources for independent travelers, helping people discover more of the world with confidence.