Evidently there is a new forum that is devoted to following the hippie trail in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, or Nepal. I have to admit I'm surprised to see Turkey there as that seems to be more mainstream than the others. I'm assuming these countries are the ones that Rick went through on his hippie trail?
Interesting. Does this mean we can have a Romania forum? :-) For those who don't follow links, you can find it tucked underneath the Beyond Europe forum.
Mardee....there seems to be a pattern when it comes to new forum categories:
Either RS writes a book about the place or its included in one of his tours.
I'm not knocking it just pointing out a fact.
I guess that makes sense, Frank. :-)
And congratulations to Seth Brown for the first post on this forum.
Just as there were once several silk roads, so there were several hippie trails. Taking off from an earlier comment on Morocco, I’ll point out that there were a few that went further south into West Africa. By the time I travelled one of them, in the late 1970s, the hard-core hippie culture was fading, but several of the main elements were still in place — there were still enough young backpackers, mostly European, to fill the hostels and the cheaper hotels in places like Bamako and Mopti, where one might not have expected to find any tourists at all.
Though I could not fully appreciate it at the time (for I had no idea what was coming), one of the great things about that travel — and this comes to mind every time I read someone forums like this moan about bad wi-fi in their lodgings — is that in those final years of the wonderful pre-communications era, when there was no e-mail, instagram, or tik-tok, once you went “in there,” you were really in there; and you didn’t go in there unless you were content to be out of touch with your “loved ones” until you eventually emerged. Though this didn’t deter the back-packers, it otherwise had a salutary effect on the risks of the mass horde-tourism that we endure in so many places today.
(I might add that there were no universal ATMs either -- you went on such a trip carrying the cash which you had estimated you would need, knowing full well that Upper Volta or the Ivory Coast, fascinating as each was to visit, might be an inconvenient place to discover that you had underestimated!)
there seems to be a pattern when it comes to new forum categories:
Either RS writes a book about the place or its included in one of his
tours.
My first thought when I noticed the new category was why there wasn't a section for cruising yet. It's been mentioned several times over the past few years that some would like it as a specific topic. Afterall he did write books and do some shows on it.
Are there any trails now that are similar? Why was there even a journey called the hippie trail? Were we more interested in travel and journeys and other people than now? Or has the emphasis changed on scratching out a means and a way to go there? Now, the trail is one of party in Ibiza, luxury in Dubai, vlogs, dancing in night clubs, gigs on your computer, and selfies. The journey motivation now is to up your subscriber numbers.
@Allan: First, I like the slogan below your name -- don't drop it! I only hope most Canadians agree. (All of them, actually.) Second, I did watch Mr. Steves' hour-long show on cruising. He insisted at the start that we was not promoting cruises, but only offering only the "pros and cons" of cruising, though it seemed to me as if his "cons" were few and perfunctory, overwhelmed by his enthusiastic "pros." Opinions may differ, and he is after all our forum host; but I thought that for someone who wasn't promoting cruising, he was doing a very good job of it.
