Is this forum dying?

[Hydro]

Have a great trip, mate. Our plan is to be here quite awhile longer!

I don't know it if is dying, but I know it isn't anything like it used to be. When I first started showing up, there'd be a dozen people chatting back and forth, about goofy stuff. There were games and random chatty threads, and people talking about plotting trips and coming back from trips, and reporting in from the road.

Back when I first showed up, I wanted to be one of those people. They were people who wouldn't stare at me in horror when I said I wanted to go *everywhere* or suggest that even setting foot on some continents would get me infected with HIV, shot, and raped.

Eventually I met some of those people, and had a great time doing it--they were honestly cool people who went out and had fun, and took trips when they could, and made that the center of their lives.

Then I ran into problems in life, and coming here was depressing. I wasn't going to be able to take off again for a while, and reading about people doing just that made me feel worse than I already did.

By the time I came back... I had trouble even *finding* the forums. The threads and games and people I was used to seeing were gone or in hiding.

I'm sure some of them have kids and jobs, they might be in the place I was before last year, who knows. Heck, I think some of them are dead...

But *some* are traveling. Among the ones I've met, at least. And the only reason I know this is because they're on my facebook, or their blogs, or something else like that.

I think with more active focus on having a community here again, there would be more people. And, well, with some way to see that there are actually forums without having to hunt them down. I'm on the road right now. I'd like to be able to talk to people who get what I'm up to, but they just don't seem to be here right now.

Wait, what was the question?

My interest in this site dropped to zero once I moved to China nearly 6 years ago. Looking back I think this site helped to support the allure of a radical life change, and once that change became a reality this site lost it's purpose.

I would hope that people looking for inspiration and motivation to embark on long-term travel come to sites like this instead of facebooking and twittering all day! (It's actually nice to have China block this stuff so I don't become an addict!)

BUT, the party in Portland and the meet-up in NYC were both awesome, so without this site I would never have had those experiences and opportunity to meet some great people

Have a great day! Bye.

It seems to me that the main value of this site was inspiration. To see a place through the eyes of some of the old posters was an incentive to go there myself. I've recommended this site to many people I've met on my travels and hope they can catch the desire to travel to far away places. I met a girl from New Zealand on a train from Nice, France to Milan, Italy who had a huge backpack (so big she wouldn't take it off for fear she couldn't get it back on). She has a lot to teach us but, primarily, she can teach us about the joy of travel. Perhaps the reason the boards are so quiet is that people aren't traveling as much.

I just got it confirmed to me there are no longer active moderators on the forum.

I am going to remain positive on this forum because I truly love it. I went out to Portland one year for a party, met a lot of the most active and amazing posters we once had...it was a great weekend. I have to agree that this site was social then travel, and then a bit of a mix.

Yeah you did! I'm one of the people who dropped off the boards. Many of us keep in touch with each other on Facebook now, which is more convenient but less personal. No more prisa rants. No NTFT snark. I have to drunk text BillE and show up in person to see BostonBill. Many of them are actually traveling, but I'm back on here because I'm moving to China and have some questions, so the site is serves more of a purpose than it has for the past few years when I've been busy resenting being stuck in one place. BootsnAll's focus has also really changed. No more meeting of the Booties at the annual party. Part of what kept this community so active was the fact that so many of us regularly met up with each other in person. Some of us still do, but it's as old friends now and without the open invitations of meetups in the past. I miss it! Glad to see some familiar faces on here still though. I'll make a point to poke my nose in here and be ridiculous on occasion.

[Hydro]

Congrats on the move to China, mate. That's really exciting! Let us know if there is anything we can help with.

I miss the December Boo parties too. Always a great time and something to look forward to. It is my sincere hope that we can start those up again in the future (maybe wait til I move back to the US tho!)

I remember how much I loved this site when I found it years ago. I did more reading than posting but it was a fun forum to be part of. I found inspiration and lots of information. I visited the site daily.

For me I think the reason I left is many fold. I met a travel buddy on here and we went travelling together so less time for posting/reading. After that I was sucked into life and the illness/death of a close relative which changed my perspective on wandering the globe. Then in happened. I got married. My focus shifted.

Also every time I came back to the site it was different and harder to find the community that once was (harder just to find the forums). Obviously like many...I still come back here. It is like visiting an old high school friend you used to have lots in common with and defined as being your best bud...only to find that you have changed, they have changed and all you have is memories.

Well, I agree it has gotten a little stale here, probably due to some of the more obnoxious people's hormones probably slowed down, but I'm still here to hold donw my corner of the obnoxious forum and I just hope you all aren't growing old. I just went to a 40 year anniversary of a company that was bought out, and let me tell you, trying to get an interesting converstion going was very difficult. Everybody not only got old but acted it and seemed to enjoy doing absolutely nothing, nada, zilchsky. It was simply depressing and i realized that I am unusual, different, more full of energy than these old coots and am not going to succumb to this old age thing.

And I hope all of you don't either. My traveling this year, will be another trip to China, shortly after Barrack Obama is trounced in the election, and this time after taking care of business, then vising Beijing, Yi Wu and maybe a few other places I haven'nt seen, then it's down to Vegas for a trade show and after the show a trek down the Grand canyon, then i finallly become a Grandpa in February, then it's Mexico for a week or 10 days with the family in boring old Cabo, then I going to Peru again in June and hike in the Colca Canyon, visit some other remote villages, then visit Nasca, titicaca, then Bolivia, and probably somewhere in there another trip to China on Business.

Maybe not dying but slower than molasses flowing uphill in January.

It's the 4th day if October & only 4 posts this month (5 now).

Well, we'll see how things go in the next few months, but once I settle into life in China there is a little bit of talk about an Asia Bootie meet-up. A lot of us talk off of the forums these days, but part of the magic of our meet-ups in the past was the randomness of the crowds that came and the new friends we met every time. We may need to plan a beach party in Vietnam.

I haven't been on in years either. Starting to plot some major travel misbehaviour in the next year or so, thought I'd see if anyone was still kicking around.

Even just looking at "statistics for the last 7 days" - 77 posts. That's not the BNA I remember!

I am new to the forum and planning a major career break. I find the information very helpful here but do find that there is less of a community feeling than the other message board I am a member of. I attributed it to people being off traveling. Shows how much I know. I do enjoy the information and would host a meetup in the DC area if anyone was interested.

The censorship of replies to posters spamming long dead threads (a no-no on most forums) then replying to criticism with the mentality of a 4 yr old kindergarten student (busman started it) isn't helping the cause!

Ouch. "Busman started it" was meant as a joke, kind of highlighting the silliness of the argument in general. I don't feel like going back quoting stuff, but something about political correctness killing the board? And older members running roughshod over newer? Sorry you got censored, I didn't hit the "report" button.

I'm a new member here, I apologize for trying to re-vitalize some older posts that had relevant information to me, instead of "asking the same questions over and over". Yes, some new users are going way overboard with it and posting useless stuff to old threads (and I may be guilty for a few). Regardless, I choose to to post in BnA because I do feel that it is more personal and community based then some of the other travel sites out there. New users will come to sites like this because the people they know on Facebook aren't experienced travelers or don't share the same passion.

As was said previously, it seems a lot of the original and "back when" users may have gotten out of the travel game, for whatever reason, but there is always a new generation putting on a rucksack and buying a one way ticket. With the economy down, I hope to see the next generation decide to travel more, see more, experience more. Why jump straight into massive debt when a college degree won't get you a job anymore. There is also a lot of people my generation, finished college for a few years but with no career progression or job options, looking to escape. Plus with military cutbacks (at least 80,000 Active Duty soldiers from the Army alone) and the wars ending, I predict a lot of jobless soldiers using their deployment savings to bounce around the world for a bit (Like me!). While these boards may be dieing (I hope not!) I don't think independant and long term travel has anything to worry about despite the economy.

The key for me is recreating myself in a new form every so many years. I have just recently shed my "conservative worrying" skin and no longer watch much news, don't listen anymore to talk radio, and listen to music more. What with "smoke" being legal here in Washington, am going to take that up with more abandon, not that i ever gave it up, but a focus on the now and listening to music, painting, creating, and starting off on adventure travel jaunts with no fixed schedule or reservations allows me to view things somewhat like I did when I was quite young. Old people just seem to talk about their aches and pains, what is lacking in the young people, and passing along tire and trite e-mails. I'm also very busy with my business and find I can work harder and smarter and get more done than i ever could and my customers really have no idea they are talking to a fairly old bird on the phone.

So I hope we see some new blood here with aspirations to do shit, not just talk about what they did. One thing I have learned is that my information loses relevance in a very short amount of time, and what was true 2 years ago, isn't so true anymore. If you aren't constantly aware of your ignorance and the need to overcome it with the latest, then you quickly become old and off in the ditch somewhere, getting dust blown in your face by the passing of reality.