How a journey on the Hippie Trail changed Rick Steves' life (and influenced Rolf's travels too)

Episode 251 • February 11, 2025 • 00:44:26
How a journey on the Hippie Trail changed Rick Steves' life (and influenced Rolf's travels too)
Deviate
How a journey on the Hippie Trail changed Rick Steves' life (and influenced Rolf's travels too)

Feb 11 2025 | 00:44:26

/

Hosted By

Rolf Potts

Show Notes

“Anybody with curiosity and wanderlust can have their own Hippie Trail. They just need to get away from home, embrace the world, and have an adventure.” –Rick Steves

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Rick talk about Rick’s 1990s book Asia Through the Back Door, and how Rick recently rediscovered the old Asia travel journals he kept as a young man (2:30); how Rick prepared for the journey in the era before there were many guidebooks to the regions he was headed (9:30); what the experience of travel was like for Rick and his friend Gene on the Hippie Trail, including spiritual experiences (18:00); how travel can expand your sense of community, and diversify your sense for what wealth and poverty is (28:00); Rick’s first experience of smoking hash on the Hippie Trail, and how it gave him an appreciation for the joy of travel (34:00); and what lessons Rick brought home from the experience (39:00).

Rick Steves (@ricksteveseurope) is a travel expert, author, and TV host who specializes in Europe. His newest book is On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer.

Notable Links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

Other Episodes

Episode

October 02, 2018 • 00:58:24
Episode Cover

Major Jackson on the poetics of time (and how best, in life, to spend it)

“The act of creating is a way of stopping time.” – Major Jackson Major Jackson (@Poet_Major) is an American poet, professor, and author of...

Listen

Episode 233

November 28, 2023 • 00:41:56
Episode Cover

The best journeys explore mindscapes as well as landscapes (book club remix)

“Sometimes it’s good to sit still and let a place move through you instead of you moving through a place.”  –Rolf Potts In this...

Listen

Episode

December 19, 2017 • 00:51:14
Episode Cover

The Sears Christmas Wish Book was (truly) great American literature

“The Sears Christmas Wish Book was, for me, a kind of foundational text — a secular counterpoint to the Bible stories I learned around...

Listen