On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer

TV host and guidebook writer Steves (Travel as a Political Act) delivers a diverting if underbaked account of his 1978 journey across Asia and Eastern Europe. After college, Steves and his friend, Gene Openshaw, embarked on a trip from Germany to India, with stops in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal. Most of the book consists of entries from Steves’s diary, which recount his and Openshaw’s experiences hitching rides, visiting museums, and marveling at the wide variety of living conditions they encountered. The timing of their trip predated major political developments in the region, including the shah of Iran’s downfall and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, lending the entries an occasionally fascinating, frozen-in-time quality. While Steves mostly achieves his goal of presenting “candid, unvarnished snapshots” of his travels, readers may wish he offered more contemporary reflections on his decades-old observations. Without the added value of hindsight, the sometimes-monotonous entries can feel dashed-off and incomplete—even when one takes the book’s brief, reflective epilogue into account. Though Steves’s fans may take pleasure in these raw reflections, others will shrug. Photos. (Feb.)