Since 1973, Rick Steves has spent about 100 days a year exploring Europe. His mission: to empower Americans to have European trips that are fun, affordable, and culturally broadening. A New York Times-bestselling author, Rick produces a guidebook series, a public television series, and a public radio show, and he organizes small-group tours that take over 30,000 travelers to Europe annually. He does all of this with the help of more than 100 well-traveled staff members at Rick Steves' Europe in Edmonds, WA (near Seattle). When not on the road, Rick is active in his church and with advocacy groups focused on economic and social justice, drug policy reform, and ending hunger. What's the ideal vacation for a professional traveler? For Rick, it's to play his piano, relax at his family cabin in the Cascade Mountains, and spend time with family and friends at home in Edmonds. Find out more about Rick at RickSteves.com and on Facebook.

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X: @RickSteves
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"[On the Hippie Trail] is an inspiring read, full of the joy of adventure and discovery."--Lulu Garcia-Navarro, The New York Times

"Amusing, poignant and sometimes inspirational, it reflects a spirit of youthful wanderlust that's a bit edgier than the polished presentation Mr. Steves provides as a latter-day travel guru."--Wall Street Journal

"If On the Hippie Trail has a lesson, it's as simple as this: Rick Steves had the time of his life... The guy can really write... Perhaps On the Hippie Trail will prove to more readers that Steves has always possessed that talent for observation and description, even when he was writing only for himself."--Slate

"The travel guru with an empire that includes loads of bestselling guide books and a small-group tour company was once a scruffy young man with a thirst for adventure, no money and no clue what he was doing when he set off in 1978 with a friend to complete the legendary Hippie Trail, a trek through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. This is his journal from that heady, rough trip -- full of mishaps and excitement."--AARP

"The dreamy travel descriptions are fun, but what's loveliest in this book is to watch Steves slowly open his mind to a world that was bigger and more complicated than he ever expected."--Vox

"Steves' journals have now been published in a gorgeous book, On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer, featuring full-color photographs, a foldout map and reproductions of journal pages. The trip itself served as the origin story of the larger-than-life figure that Steves has become: A man who greets both the joys and frustrations of travel with enthusiasm, and who's not afraid to advocate for travel as a political act."--Seattle Times

"On the Hippie Trail... presents Steves as a passionate young man falling in love with the world, bursting with delight at its dangers and disappointments as well as its treasures and pleasures. Steves' wide-eyed innocence and enthusiasm are present on every page, as are his clear-eyed depictions of local rites and idiosyncrasies - all intimations of the travel icon to come."--BBC

"Before marriage, before children, before divorce, before cancer... Steves was just a 23-year-old heading off on an adventure with a buddy. But like generations of pilgrims, dropouts, and merry pranksters before him, what he discovered on that journey was his mission... The hippie trail did for Steves what he wants travel to do for everybody -- it gave him purpose."--Salon

"Still, after all these years of sharing his sage travel advice, [this] new book may just be his greatest inspirational message yet for young travelers."--Travel & Leisure

"Known for decades for amiable PBS travelogues, Steves shows that the young longhair is the father of the man: All of his evenhandedness, generosity, and curiosity are in evidence from the minute he jumps his first train from Frankfurt to Yugoslavia... A pleasure for travel buffs, especially those who once plied the Hippie Trail--or wish they had."

--Kirkus Reviews

"Unlike Steves' authoritative guidebooks, this hardcover travel narrative shows a young and wide-eyed traveler who's experiencing cultures and places for the very first time. At one point he's mulling over the disparities between the first world and the third world; at another he's staring in awe at the Taj Mahal. "Europe is like a well-worn pair of shoes," he writes in the chapter titled "Leaving Europe." "But as a traveler, I need more ... something to wallop my norms." He found it on the Hippie Trail."--Smithsonian Magazine

Publisher: Rick Steves

Pub date: 2026-04-21

Length: 264 pages