NOSTALGIA AND THE HIPPIE TRAIL - FROM THE 1960s TO SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY

The "Hippy Trail” is a well-known name for the overland route travelled mostly by young Europeans, Americans and others, during the 1960s and 1970s. The roughly 11,000 mile journey the stretches from Europe to India and Nepal. There were a number of variants on this trail, although usually the it passed through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Finally, it terminated in either the beaches of Goa, India, or further north in Freak Street, Kathmandu, Nepal. 

Sadly, the ability to complete this trip was all but shut down in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  After that, it was still sometimes possible to complete the route by skipping that country and taking a wild southern journey direct between Iran and Pakistan - but this way didn’t seem to have the same romance to it.  Afghanistan, it seemed, was at the heart of the trail. In Kabul there was the infamous overlander pit-stop Chicken Street, and to the north the were the Band-e-Amir lakes, the giant Buddha of Bamiyan - then Herat to the West and Mazar-i-Sharif to the north. The mysterious and intriguing state of Afghanistan was at the heart or the centre of the overland route. 

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the journey wasn’t actually called the “Hippy Trail”, but instead the “Overland Trail” or the “Overland Route”. Some people travelled this way in their own vehicles - Kombie vans, Morris Minors or even the odd intrepid bicycle (such as Dervla Murphy). Others took the long distance bus or truck organised by entrepreneurs such as Top Deck and The Magic Bus. Finally, for the most hardy, there was the public transport - busses and trains. One popular account of from this time is the influential and popular travel book The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux - although he never referred to the 'Hippie Trail'. 

However they got there, one way or another, all these disparate individuals and groups trundled across the barren deserts, through the icy mountains, from oasis to souk, on a grand adventure ‘discovering’ the world - or at least ‘discovering’ it for the Europeans. 

To the hardy traveler on the Hippy Trail, the journey was nothing to do with “tourism”. Mass tourism, selfie sticks, instagram, influencers, crowds were an as yet unforeseen  future. 

Today - some fifty or sixty years later - there seems to be nostalgia for this bygone era of travel. It is romanticised as an innocent time, where the romance of travel was more pure. Untainted by the modern world, there were few guidebooks (until one group of overlanders founded Lonely Planet), maps were poor quality and certainly there was no www.tripadvisor, www.booking or airbnb to ensure a comfortable nights rest. This era pre-dated Email, google, YouTube. All the accoutrements of the modern world were unknown. Instead, word of mouth (presumably from overlanders coming in the opposite direction), Poste Restante and figuring things out as you went was the method of communication and information gathering. 

Today, looking back, there is a sense of loss for the age of pre-internet and mass tourism or travel.  An example of this nostalgia has recently started to appear in my social media feed. Facebook groups called  “’60s, ’70s & 80s Trails to India and Beyond” “the hippie trail” and the “New Hippie Trail Facebook Group” now boast active memberships of tens of thousands. Frequent posts feature old photographs, ephemera, long written descriptions of various journeys and multiple links to self-published books. This was clearly a moment in time many people care about.

To these people, the Hippy Trail era is perceived as a more authentic or romantic era. Travel, back then, was apparently not only about adventure, discovery and exploration, but also a more simple time. Local people, so it is perceived, were kinder, more generous - sights were “unspoiled”. Overseas visitors went to some lengths to differentiate themselves from “tourists”, at best self describing themselves as travellers. In fact, the more blended with the locals you became, the better. This was a kind of proactive attempt at the rejection  of your native culture to become at one with the natives. 

Reminisces on the Hippy Trail also show deeply personal elements. There are frequent posts by members seeking the whereabouts of old friends, lovers and acquaintances. In one instance a member posts two photos of a young woman in a psychedelic dresses, one located in what looks like the top of a fort or castle and another in a field of flowers. Like many other participants, he asks the group - does anyone remember or knows the whereabouts of the women in the photo?

In some regards, the comments contained within these social media groups support critiques such as Edward Said’s “Orientalism”. Here travel writing’s and tourism’s post colonial roots - which comes out of colonial exploration, seeing the native locals as subjects, the “other” to be observed.  In some regards that “other” or “travelee” might be glorified as some sort of “noble savage”, while others are represented as sneaky and untrustworthy. Many Hippy Trail Facebook group comments with regard to locals do fall into stereotypical derogatory (usually directed at officials, authorities, border guards, taxi drivers, touts and so on) to reverent and idealised (sadhu’s, monks, kind families and so on). 

It would be easy to dismiss this Hippy Trail nostalgia as some sort of post colonial narrative - wanting to fix other cultures in a particular time, as “traditional”, objectifying the local inhabitants as exhibits to be observed, rather than real people with real lives and struggles.  It would also be easy to say the nostalgia is what happens as we age. 

But the fact remains: so much has actually changed. We can’t assume all of that change is for the better. It is a fact that there were less people in the world, even a short time ago. Pollution, traffic, crowds were less. We weren’t always slaves to technology - or at least not to social media and cellphones. So maybe, in fact, many things were better back then - both for the traveller and the local.  There is certainly an argument for that, although there is no denying poverty - both past and present. 

Additionally, many of the Facebook participants in these social media groups are also locals - or formerly locals. In particular, there seem to be many expat Afghans sharing photos of ‘old Afghanistan’ - not just of the cities, minarets, valleys and lakes, but even including pictures of western tourists from that era. There is a deep sadness to many of these posts - they show heritage building, markets, traffic free streets, most seeped in the warm and faded tones of Kodakchrome. Many buildings and places are now long destroyed or gone. In the pictures, there is not a cellphone to be seen, traffic is is minimal, powerlines and advertising hoarding are few. The throng of humanity is minimal, the streets look peaceful, calm and trouble free.  

The challenge is to balance the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia with what actually went on at the time.  And then, to also consider what is happening in the world today.

So, in order to understand this better - particularly in relation to travel to other parts of the world (particularly Asia) - I am curious to explore this sense of nostalgia. Why do we feel it in relation to certain places? Sometimes we even feel it for times and places we’ve never been. Or locations that aren’t even our own homeland. Clearly, it means a lot to a large group of people - and it is something I experience myself - why is that?