Truly, I don't mean to come across as argumentitive... But I do live in a major U.S. city, most of my friends are travelers, some of them "rough" style, & they'd all agree with my common useage of the word - backpacker - as a traveler not a wilderness camper.

Or maybe it's all the time I spend reading over on Lonely Planet's forum
:-)

LOL - yeah, I think it is all the time you spend reading Lonely Planet ;)

I live in California,if someone told me that we were going "backpacking" next weekend I would assume a trek in the woods.
I cannot recall the last time I saw a hitchhiker.

"going backpacking" used as a verb i agree that's camping and hiking and such

as a noun, being a "backpacker" implies a person who travels rough and even hints at an attitude of taking the road less traveled and all that

When I was in southeast Asia last summer, "backpacking" usually meant a budget traveler carrying a backpack (duh). However, as a backpacker, you could go weeks without "roughing" it in the woods, but there's a degree of having limited funds. Here in the States, a "backpacker" is associated with backcountry hiking. After a long trip, said backpacker could dust himself off and get into his Land Rover. Not exactly the picture of a budget traveler. Just a difference in uses of the word.