The Current - The hippie trail trip that changed Rick Steves’ life

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Rick Steves had his first puff of a joint in Afghanistan while he was travelling the Hippie Trail in 1978, the overland route from Istanbul to Kathmandu. The travel writer and entrepreneur talks to Matt Galloway about how that trip made him think about the world differently — and why he says others should seek out mind-expanding travel, too.

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, it's Matt here. Thanks for listening to The Current wherever you're getting this podcast. Before we get to today's show, wonder if I might ask a favor of you if you could hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. There is a lot of news that's out there these days. We're trying to help you make sense of it all and give you a bit of a break from some

of that news too. So if you already follow the program, thank you. And if you have done that, maybe you could leave us a rating or review as well. The whole point of this is to let more listeners find our show and perhaps find some of that information that's so important in these really tricky times. So thanks for all of that, appreciate it, and onto today's show. Rick Steves is a public television and radio host.

He's the author of many travel guidebooks. His business runs tours across Europe, and his voice is almost as well known as his signature purple shirt. It is a career that Rick Steves never dreamed of in 1978. He graduated from university, was set to be a piano teacher, but before that, he set off with his pal, Jean Openshaw,

to travel the hippie trail, the overland route from Istanbul to Kathmandu. That trip changed the trajectory of his life, and it is the subject of his latest book, On the Hippie Trail, Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer. Rick Steves is in Edmonds, Washington. Rick, good morning.

Nice to be with you, Matt, thanks. It's nice to have you here. This is a new book, but you wrote it back in 1978. It's from your journals, 60,000 words that you wrote in those journals. What's it like to go back and read? I mean, it's like a time machine in some ways to go back and read your writing from back then.

It was some kind of freaky anthropological dig into the past of looking at a 23-year-old me. I'm exactly three times that old right now, 69. And when I go back to that, and it was me before I was a travel writer. I was, as you mentioned, a piano teacher and I was just on vacation in the summer. I have not traveled in such a footloose and frenzy free way since because I've got the burden, the wonderful burden of running my business and updating my guidebooks and leading my tours and making my TV

shows. But on that trip, it was purely a chance just to get out there and get to know the world. It was travel with abandon. It was travel celebrating the idea that you can learn more about your home and yourself sometimes by leaving it and looking at it from a distance. And I have all these kind of philosophical approaches to travel now, but back then there was no philosophy that I knew of. I was just a green naive kid with a few bucks in my money belt and going for the end of the rainbow as far as hippies were concerned and that was Kathmandu. And the fun thing about it is I wrote it up in a very serious hard bound empty book, a 60,000 word journal I came home with and I photographed it too and I, you know, kids took cameras along and they just shot pictures of each other.

But I really documented the trip with film and then kind of forgot it for 40 years. COVID hit and I had time on my hands, you know, and I read the thing and it was vivid. It was, to me, it was honest, it was candid, it was edgy, it was not politically correct, it was just some 23-year-old kid back in the 70s who had the trip of a lifetime. It was 1978, which was the last year of the hippie trail.

After that, the Shah fell and Ayatollah came in and Iran became a theocracy and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, so the war broke out there and you couldn't travel. It was a storm of weird circumstances that enabled me to have this book and it's fun to be able to share it. The hippie trail is a route but it existed beyond that as well. What was it? Yeah, the hippie trail was a thing back in the 60s and 70s. You know the Beatles were going to India to hang out with the Maharashi and there's a

lot of kids that wanted to get away from the comfort and the predictability and the homogeneity of their home lives. And it was freedom, really. It was freedom and it was sort of a, I don't know, it was kind of like, I don't want to romanticize it, but just to be poor, to hang out in a poor part of the world and sleep on the floor and have a lot of diarrhea and eat a lot of different weird things and to risk getting arrested at a border. It was just, everything was just wild with no safety net and there was almost no information. That's what I remember. And if I was on a

bus for four or five hours, I'd go up and down the bus and any other Westerner on that bus was another hippie trail traveler and I'd see, do you have any information? Can I just borrow it for an hour and read it? Because I was hungry for information. And of course, that's what I'm all about now. Two years later, I wrote my first real guidebook, Europe Through the Back Door, in 1980. When I came home from this trip, I gave away my piano students and I turned my recital hall into a lecture hall and started a small travel business. To this day, my hundred colleagues and I joke that our mission is to equip and inspire Americans

to venture beyond Orlando. What do you think you were looking for when you went on the trip? Because you write in the journals, when you're about to start, you say, I feel like I'm doing something big. What were you looking for, do you think? I wanted to broaden my world. Maybe that's it. I don't know exactly if I knew what I was looking for at the time, but I realized through my travels that the world's a big and diverse place. I knew

there was a billion Muslims and a billion Hindus. I wanted to know what made them tick. I always believed that people is what kind of carbonates the travel experience. And I wanted to meet people that I wouldn't meet at home, and I certainly did. I wanted to rough up my ethnocentrism. I wanted to rearrange my cultural furniture. I wanted to be humbled. I wanted to be more of a citizen of the planet. And I mean, I didn't think of that explicitly at the time,

but when I read the journal and when I think about why I documented it, as. But when I read the journal and when I think about why I documented it, you know, as you know, when you read the journal, Matt, we struggled with are we doing the right thing? We could turn around and go back to the Greek islands and hang out with all the kids. That would be a lot more fun, would be to hang out in the Greek islands and just party. But we wanted to experience this. And strangely, I had never been to India, but crossing the border into India after going over the Khyber Pass out of Afghanistan, it was like coming

home and I loved it. I just absolutely loved it. And then of course, getting into the Himalayas and that graceful, gracious, fragrant culture of Nepal, that was just amazing. And augmenting it with marijuana and with hanging out with people that were so interesting and philosophical and poetic and musical from all over the world. It was a dream come true trip. And it wasn't about smoking pot.

It was about freedom. And that was just one small slice of what freedom was all about. Wasn't easy traveling though. You're not flying first class. Tell me about the bus. There's a scene what you're crossing into around, people are singing La Bamba, these are long bus rides. What was it like to travel like that? I like this notion that the road can be a playground,

the road can be a school, and the road can be a church or synagogue or mosque. And for me, it's not a right or wrong answer, you just wanna mix it up and make sure you're not missing opportunities. And on that long bus, that was an epic sort of bus ride from Istanbul to Tehran. It was in itself an odyssey. And by the end of that ride, anybody that was a hippie trail traveler, we were friends, we knew each other, we were all in this together. And you know, you would see the same, it was a vast trip, but you'd bump into the same

people all along the way. And all of us were having similar parallel adventures. There was just the unpredictability of it. I mean, if I went east from Istanbul, as we did, I was entering into a world where not a single soul knew I existed, and I didn't know a single soul. We had no internet, you know, we had no safety net, our parents couldn't come in and rescue us. We had a few bucks in our money belts and a dream to get to Kathmandu. Is it different?

I mean, you don't want to over romanticize it, but is the travel, do you get something more from the travel when the journey is difficult? You write that you relish the challenge of getting somewhere the hard way. You know, nowadays, most of us fly from capital city to capital city. I really like going across borders, and the closer to the ground you are,

the more you experience. The less money you're spending, the more you experience, the more you're becoming a temporary local. I like this idea of being a cultural chameleon. When I cross a border, I drink and I eat what the locals are drinking and eating. I try to morph. And, you know, back then, we were just trying to survive also. So it's a little different than, you know, this kind of a luxury version of the hippie trail that a lot of people can find in 2025. But back in 1978, it was just travel with abandon. I mean, when serendipity

knocked, you said yes. Tell me about hashish. And I ask you this for a couple of reasons. One is, people know you as a strong advocate of legalizing marijuana, but this was also one of the attractions in getting to Afghanistan. And the first time that you smoked hash was in Afghanistan, right? And the first time that you smoked hash was in Afghanistan, right? Yeah. And when I think back on it, I was like a nice kid that didn't just want to throw away his or her virginity.

You know, I wanted to do it where it felt good. And I didn't want to smoke pot just because of social pressure at the university. I wanted to smoke it where it felt right culturally. And it felt right culturally for me in Afghanistan and India and Nepal. I decided, okay, Gene, let's get high. And that was in Herat, the first city in Afghanistan.

And it was just absolutely fantastic. What do you mean? Everything twinkled. In Herat, if you are a little bit high, all of a sudden when the sun goes down and the torches come onto the chariots and they go charging by, it comes with more drama. You know, when little kids come up to you and they clasp their hands together and they say, Namaste, I salute your virtues. It's more endearing. And then for the rest of the trip, when I read the journal, it just seems too far out to be true.

Was I high? And I don't know, I honestly don't know if I was high or if it really is that exciting. But you know, we took a canoe across the lake in Nepal and we beached it, and then we went hiking up to this herbal essence waterfall, and suddenly we were surrounded by demonic black leeches, these little black slinkies going head over tail, determined to suck our blood.

I remember what a thrilling adventure that was, to be in that jungle up in the Himalayas being attacked by leeches. And it amped up the adventure, that's for sure. And the trip wasn't about marijuana, the trip was about freedom. That's important when I think back on it. But the culmination of that trip is Kathmandu and Kathmandu I Haven't been back to Kathmandu since I have no idea what it's like now, but back then it was the city of Markets with exotic foods. It was a city of these fantasy temples With ringed with erotic art it was a city of

Music and people sitting in circles with lantern light flickering on their faces. There's people who checked out with matted hair and almost hoofs for feet. And then you'd wander there as a traveler. And there was that whole overlay of all the hippies that were there. I mean, one street I remember was nicknamed Freak Street, and it led to a place called Pie and Chai. And Pie and Chai was the original great coffee shop. And at Pie and Chai, Chai is tea, and they were famous for their pie. They had this medieval looking stone pizza oven where they would cook these amazing apple pies. And you'd gather there on these rustic tables and you'd be smoking some beautiful marijuana

and they'd be playing perfect classic rock and roll for the occasion. Credence, clear water, the doors, the stones and so on. And you'd be surrounded by poets and philosophers and musicians and this wonderful gathering of travelers who were curious about the world. And those are some of the most beautiful, happy, easygoing moments of my life.

I was gonna say, why hadn't you gone back to Kathmandu? But part of it, I think, is it sounds even better having not gone back. Do you know what I mean? Because your experience of being there lives in your memory. Yeah, I often surprise people. They say, what's your favorite country?

And they think I'm gonna say Italy or France or something, because Europe's my beat. And I say India, in the Indian subcontinent, you know, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India. And as I mentioned, that's the place that rearranges your cultural furniture. That's the place that reminds us we're not the norm. And in India, they treat time differently in that whole subcontinent. Think about how we treat it. We talk about time as if we talk about money. We save it, we bank it, we invest it, we waste it. Time is money, that's a phrase.

Well, time is not money in that part of the world. You're just in the moment. And we can be inspired by that, we can learn from that, and we can come home at least understanding that there's different ways that we can live our lives and design our priorities. And we should not be as self-assured as we often are. I mean, when I was on this trip, I was a musician, I was a piano teacher. I thought I knew classical music.

To me, Indian music was just noisy. But then I realized, wait a minute, it's just as sophisticated as our music. I know Beethoven and I know Mozart, but I don't know these guys. And I know what meter is. There's cut time, there's four-four time, there's waltz time. They didn't have the same concept of meter. I know modes.

You want it to be happy, it's major. You want it to be sad, it's minor. They didn't have the concept of modes that we have, but they have gorgeous music. So it's just a great exercise in realizing that we are not the norm. Hey there I'm David Common. If you're like me there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This is

Toronto we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you got to know and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. You told the New York Times that you were in

your glory as a traveller there and that there are different kinds of travel. You can travel as a tourist, a traveler, or a pilgrim. What does it mean to be a traveler? Because I think we know what it means to be a tourist, right? Yeah. Tourist is bucket lists and frequent flyer miles and fun in the sun and just, you know, having a good time going to Disneyland. I like that.

There's no problem with that, but that's a la la land kind of. Be a traveler to get out of your comfort zone and to Disneyland. I like that. There's no problem with that, but that's a la-la land, kind of. Be a traveler. To get out of your comfort zone and to learn. To me, it's an opportunity. And I think given the challenges we're confronted in the world today, I think it's important for us to travel and I think it's important for us to travel in a way that broadens our perspective. There's two kinds of people. Those who want to build walls and those who want to build bridges. And frightened people want to build walls. And travelers know that if you really want to build walls and those who want to build bridges. And frightened people want to build walls and travelers know that if you really want to be safe, walls are not the answer, bridges are the answer. And when we travel, I believe we realize that the world is a good place. It's filled with wonderful people, it's filled with love and come home with that notion and

we can then get busy and work on the problems that we need to work on. This is how you end the book. You talk about how, I mean, and you hinted at this. This was the year that you went on the hippie trail was the last year that anybody could do that because of revolution and war and it changed that part of the world forever.

But you say that anyone can still do this. What do you mean by that? That anyone can still do this? Yeah, that's what, when can still do this. What do you mean by that? That anyone can still do this? Yeah, that's what, when I think of this experience, Matt, it's not a 23-year-old Rick Steves in 1978 traveling from Istanbul to Kathmandu. I mean, that's physically what it is,

but the hippie trail is somebody coming of age and deciding they want to be, they want to have a broad perspective that travel can give you and let that make their life more full and with more colors and with more options and with more depth. You can have your hippie trail experience today in 2025. You can get out there and travel with a youthful spirit, travel with an appetite for serendipity and when serendipity knocks you say yes. And I know that.

You can travel with a happy trail of attitude even within the United States. And I know that because I talk to people. I love to talk to young people especially who have had that experience. They've taken a couple months off and they've gotten out of their comfort zone. They embrace that idea that you can learn about your home by leaving it and looking at it from a distance. And it really just carbonates your life to get out there and become friends with the world. One of the reasons why people don't do that is because of something that you hinted at, which is fear. In the book, you talk about how there's so much fear these days, but that fear is for people who don't get out much.

about how there's so much fear these days, but that fear is for people who don't get out much. Exactly, and I feel very strongly about that because I lament the loss of bon voyage. When I did this trip, people said bon voyage. Now they say have a safe trip. And when somebody tells me have a safe trip, I'm inclined to say, well, you have a safe stay at home because where I'm going is statistically,

and I know statistics are optional these days, but where I'm going statistically is safer than where you're staying. For me, it's just important to not let your lack of a passport and your worldview shaped by fear-mongering commercial TV news to make you a frightened person. You know, the most frightened people in our country, I think are the people buried deep in the middle of it with no passports, whose worldview is shaped by the commercial news. And you really believe that idea that, as you said, the world is a place, a welcoming place filled with joy and love and good people.

Oh, yeah. Still, there's eight billion people on this planet. I mean, bad things are happening and there's horrible wars and we could be doing a lot better. But when I travel, and I mean, how do I know? Well, I've spent a hundred days a year overseas hanging out with other people. Basically, people are getting on with their lives and doing the same things we are. They've got loving families, they've got dreams and aspirations, you know, they want to work hard and they'd love to sit down and share a drink.

And if we do that, we're contributing to peace. That's what I love about travel, is that we get to know our neighbors. When you travel and you meet good people, you want to come home and you want to share that enthusiasm for the planet. That's why I try to inspire people to get out there and see the world, to recognize that, yep, there's La La Travel and there's Reality Travel and it's not a right or wrong thing but you can mix it up and we can all benefit from a little bit of Reality Travel and the Hippie Trail was a great mix of Reality Travel and just celebrating our freedom. Let me ask you about what you called the latest adventure

in a lifetime of travels, which was being diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. How are you doing? Well, thank you for asking, Matt. And yeah, I got diagnosed with prostate cancer four or five months ago. In October, I had a horrible, if you know, prostate cancer. You know, it's all about your PSA number,

and my number was through the ceiling, it was 50. And it was clear I just needed to get rid of my prostate, and had this wonderful robotic laparoscopic surgery, and we've tested the blood, and my PSA number is down to essentially zero. That's great. And my doctor said, yep, you can consider yourself cancer-free.

So man, I'm thankful for that, and I'm just so appreciative of so many things. I mean, you know, my feeling coming through this really is thankfulness. And I look at it like a journey. For me, it was a foreign country. It was a language I didn't speak going into a hospital. I'd never spent a night in a hospital. And it was scary. And this is serious business, you know. but I was aware when I walked down the hall of that hospital that many people there wished they had my problem and everybody has these challenges ahead of them.

You were really public about this. I mean, you asked personal questions to people broadly just about how you go through this, how you come through some of the complications of the surgery and what have you. Why were you doing that? Well, I feel like I'm my travelers. We were sort of a community of travelers just, you know, in my,

in my world and my social media and the work that I do, I shared it because I've always felt that it's not good to keep your health challenges secret and to be ashamed of them. I mean, there's a lot of people struggling with a lot of things. You know, there's a lot of depression out there. there's a lot of cancer out there, there's a lot of need out there and we need to support each other. We need to compare notes. As a traveler, I love to compare notes and I wanted to compare notes with people who have gone through the trip I was taking on this prostate cancer journey and man, I got a lot of support. But I felt also a need as a person with some celebrity to raise awareness of the importance

for men to be in touch with their bodies just like women should be when it comes to breast cancer. And I was a good example of a reasonably smart person that was too busy with life to even know what my chances with prostate are, and I wasn't getting tested. And it turns out my uncle and my grandpa had prostate when they were my age they both had prostate cancer had I known that I would have been really tuned in but thank goodness my doctor said get your blood test I did Eddie not said that this would have raged in my body until I couldn't have fixed it but I fixed it relatively

cleanly because I was testing and because I took action and because we've got a wonderful medical industry, even though it's got some problems that people are frustrated by, I would not be here if it wasn't for a doctor who knew it's important to test and then the ability to get it fixed. How did it change how you think about time? You talked earlier about freedom and the freedom that travel on the hippie trail kind of sparked in you. And you have a very different life now. I mean, you, as you said, a celebrity, you are busy, you have a thriving industry. I'm sure you're booked minute to minute to minute. How does something going through

something like this change how you think about what's important and the role that freedom could play in your life now? Well, you think about things differently when you're confronted with cancer and you're reminded of your mortality. And I could die tomorrow and I have no complaints. I mean, I've had a beautiful life and I've been so blessed and privileged and fortunate and I've tried to use my blessings to contribute.

Now I've got a lot ahead of me. I'm just feeling great about upcoming travels, but I'm also realistic about I need to use the time I have left thoughtfully and what is most important in my life and the people and family. And my personal thing I'm put here, I believe, to write about the hippie trail and to share it. And that's what I was doing before I was a travel writer. That was the travel writer in training,

and now I'm a travel writer and I just love going out there taking notes, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and coming home and sharing that. And now I've got, you know, I've done the journey with the cancer story. I really feel like, you know, it was a journey. I was on a big boat. The boat was the hospital and all the technology. The captain was the surgeon, and the sails were filled by all of the prayers and the warm thoughts and wishes that people, whether they were loved ones or colleagues or people I didn't even know, that heard about this and cared about me. There's something tangible about that and it filled the sails and it got me through that storm.

And now I'm in that same boat and it's clear sailing and I suppose there'll be more storms ahead, but man, I'm thankful and I'm feeling good. And it's just fun to celebrate life. And I tend to do that through the lens of a traveler. You're living the dream. It's really great to talk to you about what you have learned in those travels, but also how you still get enthusiastic and excited about getting out on the road.

I wish you the best of health and safe travels and good travels. Thank you very much. Thank you, man. Bon voyage. That's what we're supposed to say, right? Bon voyage. You got it, man. Bon voyage and have a good hippie trail experience.

Thanks Rick. Yup, bye. Rick Steves new book is called On the Hippie Trail, Istanbul to Katmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer. Have you taken a trip that really changed your world view? Travel is an amazing thing because as Rick was saying, you're introduced to people and communities and ideas that perhaps you would not be introduced to if you just stayed home.

So tell us about the trip that you've taken that changed maybe your ideas around life or maybe the trajectory of your life. You can email us, thecurrentatcbc.ca and a tip of the hat to the Canadian author, Mark Ably, who also took that hippie trail back in 1978 and wrote about it in his recent book called Strange Bewildering Time.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.