The Hippie Trail and “A Season in Heaven”
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 07.08.03 | 11:56 PM ET
Like a lot of people who came of age in the not-too-inspiring Reagan-era ‘80s, I’ve had plenty of moments when I wished I’d grown up in the seemingly far-more-interesting ‘60s. Likewise, the backpacker in me sometimes wishes I’d been a young traveler ambling across Asia in the ‘60s and ‘70s on the Hippie Trail, back in the days before Lonely Planet had explained how to do it, back when the world seemed to be opening up to independent travel for the first time. But was it all that it seems? On Vagablogging, Rolf Potts takes up the topic in a review of a new book about the Hippie Trail, David Tomory’s “A Season in Heaven: True Tales from the Road to Kathmandu.” Tomory interviewed 35 travelers for the book. The result? “[I]t vividly captures the mindset of the young people who dropped all in the ‘60s and ‘70 to optimistically wander across Asia,” Potts writes.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Richard 07.25.05 | 12:53 AM ET
In ‘73 I went all the way around, overland to Nepal and eventually overland across Latin America. It sure changed my life; as a CIA recruiter said when I asked about being analyst, “We can’t use you. You think too much for yourself.” At 54 I’ve become more comfortable, but still try to radicalize my students a bit, and keep traveling. Tunisia this fall, and if it is a little too comfortable, it stil beats the garbage of a Disney package.
Douglas L Saunders 09.05.06 | 2:27 AM ET
i went from Europe down through Morocco what was then Spanish Sahara, and Mauritania to SEnegla, from where my friend and I meandered across West Africa - down through Zaire to East Africa, where I hung out until I left via Ethiopia. I went across the Red Sea, across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait to Iran. Then across Afghanistan and Pakistant to India, Nepal, Sri Lanka etc.
Tony Gregson 10.06.06 | 8:34 AM ET
In ‘73 my girlfriend & I travelled from the UK to Nepal by public transport. In 1976 we returned, this time in a converted 1 ton van. Vivid meries that I am attempting to capture on the above website. Would love to hear of others experiences of the trip.
Frances Dumigan 02.10.07 | 8:22 AM ET
In 1975 I left the UK by Magic Bus, London to Istanbul, then on by lifts and public transport, to India and Nepal. I travelled with an Australian girl called Debbie, who I’d met in southern Turkey. ‘Innocents abroad’ doessn’t even come close, but we survived and I’ve never realy stopped travelling since. Would love to share experiences of those heady days.
Fran
yves potvin 04.27.07 | 12:01 PM ET
I went on the hippie trail in 1971 for five months or so. Istanbul was the first truly exotic place. The trail had its special places suich as the Pudding Shop and Yener in Istanbul, Amir Kabir in Teheran, Superbenzad at Herat and Nouristan hotel and Khyber Pass restaurant at Kabul. What an era and what an adventure. In those days Kandahar was so exotic you just din’t believe what you saw. The problem with us nostalgic boomers is that after what we experiences in those days, we tend to see our travels as the real ones compared to today’s world.
yves