Remembrance of Things Past
On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick Steves (Hachette, 2025)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Stice
“The Iranian countryside was dramatic and I took plenty of pictures. With 14 rolls of film, 36 shots in a roll, and 55 days of travel, I stayed within my limit of 9 shots a day—and Iran was worth every one” (37). We may know Rick Steves from television, but in 1978 he was working with camera film on a long journey from Istanbul to Kathmandu with his friend Gene Openshaw. Steves was 23, a college graduate, and a piano teacher who had never been on PBS. On the Hippie Trail is a “lightly edited” version of the journal he kept along the way accompanied by some of the photos he took.
On the Hippie Trail has all the classic features of a youthful travel journey. Our main characters encounter strange foods and succumb to stomach ailments. They meet interesting locals. They end up on dangerous bus rides. They ride bikes. They visit villages. They see temples and talk to strangers and haggle over taxi rides and a few souvenirs. They are alternately bored, overwhelmed, excited, and exhausted. Most of the narrative comes from Rick Steves’ old journal and he clearly already had much of the tone and manner that we now know from his television specials. The result is charming with enough detail to keep you interested but not too much to bog you down. He has packed light enough for good pacing and the photos are entertaining, too.
On the Hippie Trail takes us into Rick Steves’ past and into the past generally. In 1978, people still spoke of a “hippie trail.” The hippies were not a distant memory. India was the ultimate destination. Rick and his friend Gene were on the trail but they weren’t exactly hippies. Yes, they went to the legendary Pie & Chai in Kathmandu and they experimented with hashish. But they stuck together more than they joined up with others. They visited the Taj Mahal, but didn’t seem to even contemplate an ashram. Rick Steves was still a piano teacher from Washington who had traveled Europe extensively. He was on the hippie trail, but he remained more of a general traveler.
In so many ways, On the Hippie Trail is a window onto a world that no longer exists. In 1978, Rick Steves traveled to communist Bulgaria, through Iran under the Shah, and through Afghanistan. Despite some mildly complicated border crossings, journeys were possible which couldn’t be imagined today. Sitting in the apartment of a new friend in Tehran, Steves began to see the world a bit differently. “I had never cared about, or even noticed, what I was now realizing was a big ethical issue: the giant difference between rich people and poor people. Not between rich and poor countries… but the difference within countries” (45-46). His new friend was a supporter of the Shah, but the news made it clear that the Shah had many opponents. In Herat, Afghanistan, Steves bought local-style clothing, hoping to stick out a bit less. He and Gene heard that a “People’s Revolution” was beginning somewhere in the country. The entire book is one step ahead of the end of an era. As the postscript indicates, “although we didn’t know it at the time, 1978 was the end of the Hippie Trail” (246).
The world was geo-politically different, but it was also drastically different in terms of technology and navigation. Rick and Gene relied on maps and word of mouth. They had some information, but this was before Lonely Planet was widely used (it was founded earlier in the 1970s). There were no cellphones to get coverage for. At the beginning of the book, Rick missed Gene at a railway station and had no way of finding him or even knowing if he had made the journey. Fortunately, they found each other at their backup meeting location. They visited currency exchanges and never used credit cards. Gene ended up with an unplanned inoculation at the Afghan border, when officials decided to fill in a gap on his vaccination record before they let him into the country. No one seemed to worry about where the old needle had been.
The trip from Istanbul to Kathmandu was formative for Rick Steves. It was a bolder trip than those he had been on before. He indicates that he had wanted to travel to India, but had always been a little afraid of the journey—which had real risks. It took some courage and some companionship for him to make the trip. And it changed him in ways that another trip to Europe would not have. He began to consider some of his ethnocentrism, he experienced a great adventure, and he took another step along the way to full adulthood. As he explains, the biggest souvenir he brought home was “a broader perspective” (246).
On the Hippie Trail is an interesting book with today’s geopolitical backdrop. Steves addresses this in the postscript. People think that a trip like his couldn’t happen now, not just because it’s harder to visit some of the places, but because the world is more globalized and more dangerous. Steves disagrees and thinks that “even in these ‘have a safe trip’ days” you can have a real adventure that goes beyond “bucket lists and selfies” (246-247).
Though we think of the 1970s as a moment of malaise, his book highlights the optimism of youth and the ways in which our culture once accepted more risk. Steves didn’t know what would happen on those bus rides between countries or where he would sleep before he got into a town. He had no easy way to reach his family if something went wrong. He wandered around strange cities without a map. How many of today’s twenty-somethings are always sharing their location with their friends?
It’s not just a moment in time, but a forgotten mentality that this book reminds us of. Steves says:
I miss the days of ‘bon voyage.’ There’s so much fear these days. But the flip side of fear is understanding, and we gain understanding through travel. Travelers learn that fear is for people who don’t get out much; that culture shock is the growing pains of that broadening perspective; that we’re all children of God—and by traveling, we get to know the family. (246)
Right now, people are not only often afraid, they are drawn to flashy. Rick Steves is no Jake Paul or Mr. Beast and he bears little even symbolic or metaphorical resemblance to Kim Kardashian or any professional athlete. His clothes are the epitome of normcore, without knowing it. Yet here is a man who made his interest in travel into an occupation that supports himself and hundreds of other people. He has been doing what he loves for decades. In many ways, Rick Steves parallels the difference between the SEAL-type military figures we revere today with their physiques and beards and tattoos and Sergeant Major Mike Vining, lean and bespectacled and perhaps one of the most legendary operators of all time. Vining has become a meme, but there is a meaning there for those who can see it. Sometimes the people who look boring and unassuming are having the best lives. The best places to look for inspiration may initially appear the least likely.
On the Hippie Trail does not set out to contrast eras or offer philosophical insights into the examined life, though it quietly does a little of both. It is a quick and entertaining read, with house boats in Kashmir, a good hotel learning curve narrative, and some real risk and reward. Rick Steves has known since 1978 that he values “good sleep, good food, and a good hotel” (85). This is a good book for reinforcing that and for cultivating the values associated with travel and cross-cultural encounters that happen without paid guides (or even guidebooks). On the Hippie Trail is a good reminder that great things can happen when you remove the safety net.
Elizabeth Stice is a professor of history and assistant director of the honors program at Palm Beach Atlantic University. When she can, she reads and writes about World War I and she is the author of Empire Between the Lines: Imperial Culture in British and French Trench Newspapers of the Great War (2023).
