Suzanne Harrington: I need more than tea tree oil for my tropical travel

Suzanne Harrington on the differences between backpacking in your twenties and backpacking in your fifties

The main difference between backpacking in your twenties and backpacking in your fifties is the drugs. In your fifties, they take up half your rucksack, unlike in your twenties, when you could shove them down your bra. The likelihood of your bra even partially accommodating everything you have brought to keep yourself alive while travelling in middle age is slim, not because of any actual ill health, but because in middle age you are now very much on speaking terms with your own mortality. You have made its acquaintance. You may have even stared it in the eye.