On the Hippie Trail
Usually I post book reviews on this website/blog, but because of its focus on travel, for the past two weeks I have posted a two-part review of On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick Steves in my newsletter The Perennial Nomad: For Those Who Wander with Intent. Here’s an excerpt:
I began to travel in earnest in the mid-1970s. When I did, it was not as a tourist who goes for a pre-designated amount of time and then returns home, or as a “there and back again” adventure such as Bilbo Baggins undertook in The Hobbit. I left with an open mind and with a view to discover my destiny, which I knew would include writing, but other than that I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know if I would ever return to the land of my birth, and that was fine with me.
My first journey took me to Mexico and Central America. On my next trip I flew to Europe and hitchhiked around; however, as winter approached I caught rumors that dedicated young travelers were taking the Overland Trail, also known as the Hippie Trail, across the Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent. That appealed to me. It was exciting and dangerous, a true leap from a relatively safe place into a void of uncertainty. When I made the decision to go east I was in Greece, so I hitched back north to a friend’s village in Holland, worked in factories for a couple of weeks to get a little pocket money, and then traveled through Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria to the Turkish border. From there I began hitchhiking rides on long-haul trucks, accosting European drivers stopped at borders and persuading them to let me ride shotgun. In this way I managed to make it all the way to Kandahar in Afghanistan before switching to cheap local transportation. I crossed Pakistan into India, spent Christmas on the idyllic beaches of Goa, continued south to Sri Lanka and then north to Nepal, where I hiked alone into the Himalayas on unmarked trails. I ran out of money and almost starved to death in Delhi until my father rescued me with one hundred dollars wired to the United States embassy. With that I managed to get back to Europe.
On my second journey on the Hippie Trail, I was penniless and returning to India for metaphysical reasons. I hitchhiked with private cars all the way through Turkey and Iran to the Pakistan border; I had to circle south of Afghanistan because I didn’t have seven dollars for a visa. Hitching through Pakistan to India was damned dangerous and I had several close calls. Once I managed to get to India, I continued hitchhiking with the friendly local truckers until I made it back to my destination: Calangute Beach in Goa.
All that to say that I am familiar with the Hippie Trail and have memories of many adventures while traversing west to east, east to west, and west to east again on it. So when I heard about Rick Steves’ new book about the Hippie Trail, I was very excited to obtain a copy as soon as possible.
Click on this link to read the rest.
