This is the first history of the Hippie Trail. It records the joys and pains of budget travel to Kathmandu, India, Afghanistan and other ‘points east’ in the 1960s and 1970s. Written in a clear, simple style, it provides detailed analysis of the motivations and the experiences of hundreds of thousands of hippies who travelled eastwards. The book is structured around four key debates: were the travellers simply motivated by a search for drugs? Did they encounter love or sexual freedom on the road? Were they basically just tourists? Did they resemble pilgrims? It also considers how the travellers have been represented in films, novels and autobiographical accounts, and will appeal to those interested in the Trail or the 1960s counterculture, as well as students taking courses relating to the 1960s.

The famous hippie trail--forty years later!

This collection of true stories offers a unique perspective on the hippie movement of the late 1960s. The tales present the views and experiences of a group of free-spirited travellers, who initially visited eastern countries and cultures in search of enlightenment-and in the process transformed their lives. David Tomory relates these fascinating accounts, which range from the bizarre to the terrifying, and reflects on one of the most significant social movements of recent times.

It was a new age, one called the Age of Aquarius, with a restless, ideological generation full of a reverence for new worlds opening up to new ideas. When the Beatles introduced the mystique of India to pop culture, the Hippie Trail was established as hip adventurers traveled overland from Europe to Kathmandu and India. Hunter was not among these hipsters. Still bitter over the way he was treated as a Marine combat veteran home from the Vietnam War, he felt the allure of the open road in America and in Europe. While getting visas in Vienna, he came across a Polish girl, Ewa, whose Politburo father got her unequal privileges she gladly abused to join Hunter on the trek to India to check out the new-age ashrams. Shared experiences and hardships bonded them, but Cold War politics made falling in love the worst hardship of all.

Millions of young people in the 70's poured from their homelands to remote regions of the world, filled with a pressing need to explore cultures where ages-old spiritual traditions were still intact. Places of particular interest or beauty had been discovered by early waves of explorers- word spread and a chain of destinations gradually formed which spanned the globe - the "Hippie Trail." Accompany our wayfarer and travel with him at his snail's pace as he moves overland - from Latin America to Morocco, Greece through Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan to India - often with only small bits of change in his pockets. Experience his shaky beginnings as an insecure and lonely neophyte, and grow with him as he evolves into a toughened and savvy navigator of far-away lands. Carried by his wits and many mystifying interventions of destiny, he encountered and lived through a continuing succession of often profound life experiences. This book reads nearer to a novel than travel-log, his relationships with the cast of real characters weave and tumble; their stories are told along with his own. Adventurous and introspective reading for the armchair voyager of all ages, and background for the young foot-soldiers out there on those same roads today.

If you grew up through the seventies you'll appreciate this wild tale of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. A book that tells it like it happened. Bom Bom - A Wacky Hippie Trail Adventure by Mark A Tesoriero.

Traces the author's 2011 road trip from the southernmost to the northernmost points of the United States to experience firsthand the country's diversity and political tensions in the face of a historic economic recession.