How can a holiday romance save a rock star ten years on?
It's 2003 and twenty-two year old Cath Pearson is running from home. From Bali, she runs through Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and finally back into Thailand.
It's 2013, and thirty-five year old rock star Jack Wolf has just tried to commit suicide.
Across the ten year gap, their lives are inextricably bound. In an effort to save his own life, Jack searches through the stories of the backpackers who Cath Pearson met on her flight through the tropical, exotic landscapes of South East Asia, in an effort to find out who she really was.
And to find out why, after a perfect holiday romance in Bali at the start of her running, she refused to speak to him ever again.
Backpackers sweeps through the lives of a host of twenty-somethings as they face their own dramas, their own highs and lows. It is a story of loves lost and loves gained, of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and growing up.
