Is there anything more eye-rollingly tedious than running into some wanker on the road who thinks it's all a competition?

Share your stories about that guy/gal. Then let's point and laugh.

Heres one.

I met a character who claimed that he had set out alone in the Peten and gotten lost. This macho character thought it was a really cool thing that he hacked his way to the river, then hacked his way besides the river until he found a town 3-5 days later.

I met a similar character who claimed he was a near expert in jungle walking, and had previously blazed a trail to some native tribes in the Orinoco Amazon wilds. He and his friends were talking about doing a 5 -7 day hike to some really cool native tribes. Apparently one of those natives was his friend. I didn't jump to join them.

Some of these people had never hiked in a jungle before, and of course they trusted a tourist with a braggarts story to guide them. Another set of smart people.

Just met this Aussie guy in Ranau (Sabah, Malaysia). We hadn't seen a tourist in a while and were happy for him to join us. We told him that we're cycling to India. His reply was: 'Yeah. I'm a real hardcore traveler doing real hardcore stuff.'

Hm. Isn't it up to the other people to judge you as a 'hardcore traveler'. Apparently he kayaked down one of the smaller rivers in Sabah, spent a night in the jungle, etc. Sounded all pretty 'off the beaten track to me'...but still, giving yourself the title of 'hardcore traveler' just doesn't sit right with me.

Met a American-Aussie guy in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. He was on a mission to having been to every country in the world. He was 8 shy or so. Again, that might impress and interest some people - but pressing this sort of thing on you while you find the idea that landing in a country to get a stamp and flying out a few hours later is hardly 'traveling to a country' is obnoxious. The whole hostel thought so and after a while I demonstratively put on my headphones whenever he entered the room.

By the way, did you know that we are full on hardcore travelers having cycled 3'000 kilometers already?

Muahaha.

Well, there's a reality that almost every traveler conversation at some point becomes vaguely competitive. "This one time in Kabul..." But there's a distinct personality type that feels an incessant need to show off, and yeah, that's pretty much as annoying as it gets.

In Europe I met an aussie girl who asked how long I was travelling. I said that it was for about a month. She said "Oh, not very long then?"

To be fair I don't think she was being deliberately competitive, but nonetheless I found her statement slightly irksome. I know many Aussies travel for 12 months at a time, but that doesn't make it the universal norm.

I'm a tad competitive, type A, and very unapologetic about it, but don't like to brag too much, but it's hard to talk about braggerts without revealing a little of thre braggert in us, so here goes.

I'm in the middle of the Petain jungle probably 25 miles from the nearest road, having been hiking for the better part of a day and drinking at least a gallon or so of water, severely overweight and out of shape, wondering what it would be like if I had to carry anything, when along comes this white guy with a giant pack on his back and his guide and mules and we're all sitting on somdething in the shade trying to get our wits about us, and he just keeps this monstrous pack on, has a tough look on his face, not a very happy visage, and we wonder what his problem is.

Later in the evening we wind up at the same camp, a group of really different people with one young girl just gabbing away about her adventures at the Burning Man festi val, her bartending at Lago de atitlan, and her poor parents who haven't seen her in awhile, and this guy , the pack guy, just is off by himself, not mixing in.

So I go over to hijm and try and chat him up. He says he doesn't speak much english , but has learned Erdu or Urdu, from his days climbing in the peaks of the Himalayans. He was from Hungary and kept his pack on to keep in shape. He was one tough cookies, but not too happy a guy.