Third Bar, Nam Song River, Vang Vieng, Laos by Joerg Brueggemann

Hey, Hot Shot! contender Joerg Brueggemann sends photos from the lands of Lonely Planet: Ko Pha-Ngan in Thailand, Arambol in Goa and Vang Vieng in Laos. He writes:

Here the world's traveling youth gathers to fall in love, experience drugs, ride elephants or just to have beer or two. Every year millions of young people from first world countries travel the planet taking with them nothing more than their backpacks. These modern travelers are hoping to find freedom, cultural exchanges and a lot of fun. It is a very hedonistic youth that is very much concentrated on itself. Backpacking has become a tourist industry on its own that has developed its very own touristy infrastructure.

It's true, for some reason, we're a generation that has an unprecedented desire to see the world and the will and the means to travel. Not since Kerouac inspired legions to hit the road have we had such a propensity for exploration. We've even elected a president who is known and lauded for his own wanderings; we admire and revere the traveler and long to be on the go too. But for what? Brueggemann's photos seek to answer this question; they are an incisive and insightful rebuttal to work like Ryan McGinley's I Know Where the Summer Goes. Where McGinley staged dreamy, epic moments of hedonism — naked boys and girls leaping, running and falling from the heavens like gods — Brueggeman's documented the real indulgences of mere mortals, the better and the worse.

Brueggemann's series Same Same but Different won an honorable mention in CENTER's Project Competition and can be seen on his website.