Since the advent of the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ (Sheller & Urry, 2006) much work has explored how social research methodologies can do justice to the highly dynamic and fluid social contexts in which they are applied (Büscher & Urry, 2009; Merriman, 2014; Vannini, 2015). Along with the growing recognition of the significance of spatial mobility in shaping contemporary social life, the development of so-called ‘mobile methods’ has enabled researchers to ‘capture, track, simulate, mimic, parallel and “go along with” the kinds of moving systems and experiences that seem to characterise the contemporary world’ (Büscher et al., 2011: 7). While not always badged as such, backpacker researchers have for a long time used methods that allow them to ‘see’ and ‘be’ with their mobile research participants (Hampton, 2010). Yet current backpacker research is dominated by quantitative methods, limiting the ability of scholars to advance knowledge. While backpacker research has a history going back to at least the 1990s, studies explicitly examining backpacker research methods remain relatively rare. This chapter demonstrates the use of mobile methods in practice via a case study that examines a particular type of mobile method known as the ‘go-along’ which is ‘any method that attempts to (re)place the researcher alongside the participant in the context of the “doing of mobility”’ (Spinney, 2015: 232). Researchers have used the go-along method primarily in the context of everyday urban mobility, such as driving and cycling (Harada & Waitt, 2013; Spinney, 2011) but its applicability to tourism is also recognised (Duedahl & Blichfeldt, 2020).

The case study involves a 5-day, 2000-kilometre journey through Central Australia undertaken by the author with two other backpackers in a rented campervan. The journey was part of fieldwork for a project completed in 2015 that investigated the role of mobility in shaping backpacker practices of sustainability.