Traveling Musician's Delight: Martin & Co.'s Backpacker Guitar

You love to play guitar. You love to travel. You couldn't imagine going more than one week without picking up your guitar and laying down a few licks. You also cringe at the thought of lugging it around with you while you are backpacking through...well...wherever it is that you go. You are exasperated; torn by two loves, desperately searching for a solution to your dilemma. My friend, I was once in your shoes. Then I found the Martin & Co. Backpacker guitar.

The Backpacker guitar is a wonderful invention that allows intrepid and adventurous guitar players to forget their weight woes and bring their instrument along for the journey. Its shape is something of an oddity, to be sure, leading many laypersons to mistake it for a mandolin (although it looks nothing like a mandolin) or some other type of folk instrument. This odd shape is such that the Backpacker guitar is quite difficult to play unless you use the strap. The benefits, however, are a good-sounding guitar that weighs a mere two pounds (that's correct, two pounds), is only about 3 feet long, and looks really cool.

Ok, but is the Backpacker versatile, you ask? Can the little guitar handle the rigors of a backpacking musician's lifestyle? Absolutely, I say, as long as you exercise a bit of common sense when toting your Backpacker guitar around. The padded case that comes with the Backpacker guitar is entirely adequate to protect it from minor bumps and bruises; indeed, my own Backpacker has been from Jasper, Canada to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, and has suffered only minor road wounds. The long black bag, on many occasions, actually seemed to make my crowd-navigation a bit easier as I traveled through South America. I didn't understand why until finally a brave soul came up and asked: "So you're going hunting, huh?"

The wood used to construct the Backpacker guitar is selected for its light weight and strength. Inevitably, when constructing such a light instrument, the strength of the wood had to suffer some, however. This means the Backpacker will dent somewhat easily when out of the case if not handled carefully. It also means that, for the steel-stringed version, you must use only extra-lightweight strings. Since these can be hard to find in many countries, you should bring and extra set along for the trip.

In addition to the utility of the Backpacker guitar, the friend-making potential it brings to the traveler is priceless. Backpackers weary from the road often like nothing more than to gather 'round the traveling musician, singing songs that allow them to find common ground together. When I travel, my Backpacker guitar also brings many a smile to local children and adults alike, helping to me communicate with folks through music in ways that aren't always possible with spoken language.

So fret no more, my fret fingering friend. Your days of being torn between two loves are over. Get yourself a Backpacker guitar, strap on your boots, and hit the road. You will forget that you are even carrying your companion around, until the urge to produce a bard's melody causes you take off your pack and sit awhile.