Teri Louise Kelly latest book, "The Last Bed On Earth", covers her time as manager of a backpackers’ hostel in New Zealand where she observes that backpackers "drink, fuck, take dope, steal other peoples food, drink, fuck and ride a bus to someplace where they can drink, fuck and steal food again.”High season in New Zealand. Teri Louise Kelly and partner-in-crime, Jo Buck, wait behind a wire-mesh cage ready to serve the world’s budget-travelling army as it descends through the long white clouds seeking thrills, pills, and quick kills.
Despite all the horror, Kelly’s ability to paint the worst with such humour and candour makes you want to pack up your stuff and dorm-hop your way around the world. Apart of staying in hundreds of youth hostels in my teens, I have never been in a backpackers' hostel, so reading this book will be a kind of catching up with what I could have done ... but first I have to find the book.
