On the Hippie Trail
Europe | Turkey | Iran
| Afghanistan | Pakistan | India
| Nepal | going home | paper trail | looking back
Map: ©
NordNordWest / Wikimedia Commons
'... I believe it was God’s will
that
we should return, so that men might know the things that are in the
world ...'
– Marco Polo THE TRAVELS
'Our journey to the East, and its
underlying community, has been the most - if not the only - important experience
in my life'
– Hermann Hesse JOURNEY TO THE EAST
(DIE MORGENLANDFAHRT)
'I had indeed learned how to cast off
the evils of the world
and the city, just as long as I had a decent pack on my back'
– Jack Kerouac THE DHARMA
BUMS
In
the late nineteen sixties and early seventies, hundreds of thousands of
youngsters from both sides of
the North Atlantic took the journey overland from Europe to India,
Nepal and beyond. Simultaneously, quite a few travellers from Australia
came in via Southeast Asia and took the journey the other way round. From Western
Europe the road led through former Yugoslavia, Greece or Bulgaria, Turkey,
Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. The one-way
distance along this
so-called 'Hippie Trail' was approximately 10.000 km (6.000 miles). An
old Volkswagen van was
the favourite choice of those who provided their own means of
transport. Trains, cheap buses and hitchhiking were the modes of
transport open to the others. Along the Trail, specialized budget hotels
provided shelter and a place to meet other travellers.
'Visas will not be issued to people
with hair like beetle [sic]'
– Sign at the Afghan consulate in Mashhad (East Iran) in
the nineteen seventies
Already an experienced hitchhiker, having travelled all around the Mediterranean a few years earlier (see picture above), I took up the challenge and set out on the
Grand Journey in the autumn of 1967, reached Kathmandu in Nepal a few
months later and came home in the summer of 1968.
I am grateful to the occasional travel companions I met on the road and
to the
wonderful peoples of the Middle East and South Asia, who all made this
trip a great experience.
View my impression of
the Hippie Trail in the nineteen sixties (pictures, maps, comments) on the following pages:
Europe | Turkey | Iran
| Afghanistan | Pakistan | India
| Nepal | going home | paper trail | looking back
Hans Roodenburg, The Netherlands, 2006 (last update: July 2024)
hansroodenburg.nl
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