Backpacking in New Zealand is an amazing experience I wish everyone could do at least once.

OPINION: "We don't need you here. F... off and go back to where you came from. Don't be precious. You don't have skills, we don't need you."

This has been said by a New Zealander to a backpacker. Are you shocked? Are you ashamed?

More than 70,000 young people from all over the world arrive every year in New Zealand for between six months and one year to discover your beautiful country, and a lot of us face very unfriendly welcomes.

Behind the unfriendly people, there are also all those we won't ever meet, who don't come and talk to us, the prejudiced ones. Because backpackers are just a bunch of profiteers, aren't they? Don't they use all the facilities the country provides without spending any money? All they do is spoil New Zealand with their rubbish!

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THEO FATSEAS Backpacking in the Marlborough Sounds.

Trust me, you are very wrong. But to be honest, I can't blame you.

I have been on freedom campsites where some people did indeed leave rubbish behind them, and I have indeed seen once in a newspaper a picture of a backpacker pooing in a street.

I am the first one to be angry at those people, but this is a minority of us. This kind of backpacker exists, and you hear about them, but you don't hear about the many that take their rubbish with them everywhere they go, pick the cans and packagings from the tracks, or volunteer during their free time.

Some New Zealanders are oblivious to those behaviours. They don't want backpackers in their neighbourhood anymore so freedom campsites are being shut, and they may tomorrow express their resentment in a vote against Working Holiday Visas.

Supplied We all have a part to play to keep New Zealand backpacker friendly.

However, to those who call backpackers profiteers, remember that travelling is not free.

And to earn enough money to discover your beautiful country, we work a lot in some of the hardest jobs. We take the orders in the restaurants, we wash the dishes, we pick the fruits and vegetables, we work on construction sites. All those jobs New Zealand struggles to fill every year.

And once we have done that, we spend all we have earned in New Zealand.

Don't get me wrong, most of the people we meet travelling around the country are very nice, but bad experiences leave a lot of backpackers bitter about New Zealand. And I fear that this bitterness, combined with the resentment of some New Zealanders, deprives future generations of the opportunity we had.

Thanks to my Working Holiday Visa, I have discovered a country 19,000 kilometres away from mine. I have not just been in New Zealand, like thousands of tourists, I have lived among you. I have worked with great Kiwis and learned to say “cheers” and “sweet as”.

MATTHEW CATTIN/STUFF A pair of endangered takahē feed in the Tāwharanui Open Sanctuary.

I have visited the South and the North Island, from Bluff to the Cape Reinga. I have seen the wonderful Sounds under the sun and the rain, the beaches of the Golden Bay, the amazing Taranaki dry as well as covered with snow, the crystalline waters of the Northland and the giant sand dunes of Te Paki.

I have listened for hours the songs of the tui and the bellbird, talked to the fantails and the robins along the tracks, wondered at the the parakeet colours, laughed at the clumsiness of the pigeon's flight, discovered the dexterity of the takahē, loved the playfulness of the kea, and so much more.

I have visited so many museums that I feel that I know New Zealand's history even better than my own country's. It is an amazing experience I wish everyone could live at least once in his/her life, but to do so New Zealand has to remain backpacker friendly.

We all have a part to play to achieve this goal.

Here is a first step: as a proof of their goodwill, backpackers are raising funds for the Takahē Recovery Centre. By donating to something of no direct profit for us but great profit for the country, we want to show that backpackers care about New Zealand.