“Travel Is a Political Act:” Rick Steves on the “Hippie Trail”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, you must have heard of the Hippie Trail, a legendary route for travelers thousands of miles overland from Istanbul to Kathmandu. Today, of course, it’s much too dangerous to travel through countries like Iran or Taliban- controlled Afghanistan. But it’s the journey that inspired Rick Steves, the highly respected travel writer. Now, he’s on an entirely different journey as he battles prostate cancer. And he tells Walter Isaacson why he believes travel is a vital force for peace.

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WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Rick Steves, welcome to the show.

STEVES: Walter, nice to be with you.

ISAACSON: In 1973, you went backpacking through Europe, and then in ’78 you do this amazing hippie trail track, and you record it in a notebook, in a journal with a BIC pen. And now, you’ve gone back, you’ve looked at that journal and you’ve published it. Why did you do that?

STEVES: Well, thank you. Yes, I had a — you know, I’ve always been a traveler. I was a piano teacher back then. I wasn’t thinking about being a professional travel writer, but I bought every summer — my students wouldn’t practice in the summer. So, I’d say I’m seeing September. I’m going traveling. And I went to Europe every year and I was getting, I was kept tempted by going east from Istanbul and doing that classic hippie trail. That’s what everybody was doing when the Beatles were going to India to see the Maharaji, all the backpackers. It was the ultimate road trip. And every summer I would buy a hardbound empty book, a 200-page totally blank book and I would fill it up with very thoughtful and diligent and beautiful handwriting. I can’t even read my handwriting now. And so, I had my empty book and I did the trip with my best buddy and happened to documented with a 60,000-word journal and photograph it all along the way. And it turned out that was the last year you could do that trail because the next year the Shah fell and Ayatollah Khomeini came in and Iran turned into a religious theocracy or a theocratic dictatorship, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and that was a war zone. So, it was the right time in my life, it was the right time historically, and I documented it. And I’ve been thinking about what that did to change my perspective. And, Walter, when I think about it, it’s like that was the compost pile from where I would become an adult. And because of that experience, I’ve always believed that it is a beautiful thing to get out there and get to know the world. That’s so fundamental. And I’ve been aware that we, in the United States, are about 4 percent of humanity. 96 percent is out there. And with that perspective, I’ve built my career as a travel writer and a tour organizer and a TV host on public television. And I’ve got a mission, and my mission is to equip and inspire Americans to venture beyond Orlando.

ISAACSON: But let me pick one thing that seems to be part of what you did, which is you documented, you have a notebook. And the people I write about from Leonardo da Vinci all the way through Ben Franklin, they all kept a journal on paper and I haven’t seen you talk about this, but this seems to be a core of something that we’re missing today. But it’s a beautiful way to see how your mind grows.

STEVES: You know, there’s something about writing a journal and I don’t even know if I can — yes, you know, there’s a, there, there’s a page from my journal. And I — it’s like I don’t know why, but I did that right from when I was a teenager. I had a journal, carefully written journal when I was 18 years old and I came home. Other kids were out staying out late. I was at the youth hostel writing in my journal. And again, this is when I was a piano teacher. I had no interest in being a travel writer. But I think when I look back and try to psychoanalyze it, I treasured those little moments, those little eurekas, those little revelations, those lessons, those funny moments. And I wanted to net them like somebody nets butterflies as they flutter by. A butterfly is a beautiful thing, but then it’s out of your life. And here comes another one. And did I see that correctly? Well, if I could net them and pin them onto my wall and then study them and enjoy them and treasure them and put them together and find meaning in them that’s a beautiful thing. So, I’m a big fan of journaling. I remember when we were taking our kids to Europe every year, they would have a journal. And the most treasured souvenirs I’ve got are my journals from those trips. And then, when I started writing travel guidebooks, a couple years after this trip, I wrote my — I decided to give up my piano students and I turned my recital hall into a lecture hall and I decided I was going to be a travel teacher. I didn’t have the bandwidth anymore to be doing all that journaling because I was writing books and, taking care of all the details in the hotels and restaurants that go into writing a guidebook. So, my journal writing went by the way path. But I always had my little black Moleskine notebook. you know, journalists have this little — I have it in my shirt pocket. It looks like a passport.

ISAACSON: You did your journeys in the 1970s and I’m almost convinced we may have crossed paths because I did my first hitchhiking in 1973 through Europe and then did sort of the hippie trail. Mine was Marrakesh across North Africa, all the way searching for the perfect sunset and the perfect way. But I also believe there’s a reason, you know, we wouldn’t have our kids do this if one of my students or my daughter or something said, yes, I’m going to hitchhike for six months and take buses, it just feels too dangerous. Are we overprotective? Should our kids be out there on buses and hitchhiking through Africa?

STEVES: You know, Walter, first of all, the takeaway of the book is, my hippie trail was Istanbul to Kathmandu. That was the end of the rainbow for the hippies. But the takeaway is, you can have your own hippie trail. Like you had yours across North Africa. Somebody could go biking across the deep south of our country. You could do any number of things and have your hippie trail. I think the value is getting away from home and looking at it from a distance. You know, one of the five pillars of Islam is to make that pilgrimage to Mecca. And Muslim friends of mine have explained to me, Muhammad was not all about going to Mecca, he was all about learning about the world by leaving your home and gaining an appreciation of this wonderful planet that we share. Now, as far as can people do it today, I would say it’s no more dangerous today than it was back then. Now, I know statistics are optional these days, but it’s really important for us to get out there and overcome our fears. Because honestly, I really think statistically, when we go traveling, it’s no more dangerous than we stay home. And when we travel, we make the world a safer and more stable place. Fear is for people who don’t get out very much. When we are afraid, people with an agenda can manipulate us, as history has taught us, and I think we’re learning right now. When we travel, we realize that the flip side of fear is understanding. And when we travel, we gain understanding. And then, that —

ISAACSON: Well, wait. Let me push back there. You say the flip side of fear is understanding. We gain that when we travel. People have traveled so much more in the past 20, 30 years than ever before. And yet, in Western Europe and the United States it’s become more nativist, more anti-foreign, there’s a wellspring of pro-nationalism going on. Travel doesn’t seem to have helped.

STEVES: You know, it depends on how you travel. If somebody is just jetting around going to golf courses and going to casinos and going to resorts onthe beach, they’re not having a transformational experience. I’m really about transformational travel. I’ve been teaching travel really hard ever since I was a kid. And, Walter, it occurs to me, there’s sort of a Maslow’s hierarchy of travel needs. At first, I was all excited about teaching the bottom run, the practical skills, packing light, catching the train, finding dinner. Then I moved up that hierarchy and I was impassionate about teaching history and art and culture and cuisine, appreciating the fine points of the differences between cultures. And lately, I’ve realized that the pinnacle of that Maslow’s hierarchy of travel needs is what I call travel as a political act. Intentionally getting out of your comfort zone, intentionally encountering culture shock. I think it’s wrong when travelers try to avoid culture shock. Culture shock to me is a constructive thing. It’s the growing pains of a broadening perspective, and it needs to be curated. But I just love to come home with a little less fear and a little more appreciation that the world is filled with good people. It’s filled with joy, it’s filled with love. Of course, I’m not naive, there’s complicated problems and bad characters out there. But the more we travel, counterintuitively maybe, I think the safer this world will become. But you got to travel in a way where you do get out of your culture — your comfort zone. And you celebrate different cultures. To me it’s just a very, very healthy thing. And it relates to, do we want to live in a world that is primarily all about walls or primarily all about bridges?

ISAACSON: You talk about getting out of your comfort zone. I’ll read something from your book, which is, Europe is a well-worn pair of shoes, very comfortable, but as a traveler, I need more, something to wallop my norms. How come then you just write guidebooks mainly focused on Europe for tourists going to Europe instead of getting people out to other places?

STEVES: Yes, the big step, Walter, is leaving our country and going to some other country. I’m — for me Europe is the wading pool for world exploration. It’s a springboard for getting more comfortable with the world. My favorite country is India. And that surprises people because people think of me as so crazy about Europe. But from a teaching point of view, I have the biggest market when I go teaching people to instead of going to Orlando again, I keep using that metaphor, you know, reaching out, go to Portugal, check that out, go to Ireland. I love Ireland because I get the sensation I’m understanding a foreign language. And from there, you can go further. Also, I’m a businessman and I want to work hard and help people go to a place where there’s a big market. And there’s a huge market for going to Paris.

ISAACSON: Now, where do you think people should go today besides Europe? I mean, we’ve talked about Europe, could you go to Iran? Should you go to Cuba? Should you go to the Palestinian territories? You’ve been to those places. You write about them.

STEVES: Yes. Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about how do you get the most value out of your travel? And if I — and I wrote a book called “Travel as a Political Act,” and I think half of the pages in that book are experiences from the places that have been most transformational for me, the places that you take home a different perspective and so many lessons. And those have been places my government has told me I’m not supposed to go, or discouraged me from going, or not even allow me to go. If I think back on my travels, the most impactful trips I’ve had, I would imagine, were Nicaragua and El Salvador back in the day, Cuba, Palestine, Iran. A lot of Americans don’t realize that Cuba and Iran are real destinations, not when there’s a war going on and probably not right now, but some of the bestselling lonely planet guidebooks are to Cuba and to Iran. The number one Caribbean destination for travelers from Germany and from Canadian — from Canada is Cuba, but Americans go, you can actually go to Cuba. I’ve had great experiences there and I love the idea that we can get to know the enemy. And when we get to know the enemy, it’s — it makes it tougher for their propaganda to dehumanize us. And when we get home, it makes it tougher for our propaganda to dehumanize them. And it broadens your perspective. So, these days a big challenge for all of us is to avoid the crowds because we all want to go to those Instagram spots and we all want to go to those places that are trending in social media, and we all have those bucket lists where we got to see the famous place and get a picture of us in front of it. We’ve got to break out of that.

ISAACSON: Your book, “On the Hippie Trail,” talks about a lot of adventures, one of them involved a bus ride, I think from Turkey to Iran. Tell us that one.

STEVES: That was a great way to kick off this adventure. I’ll never forget when my friend Gene and I headed east from Istanbul, Walter. We — it occurred to me, I don’t know a single soul between here and Seattle where I live. But started off, we had tickets and it was like, OK, great. We’ve got row seven seats A and B. And at the bus lot — when the bus came in, the door opened and everybody rioted to get on the bus. And we thought, what’s going on? Just relax, we’ve got tickets. So, we walked in last, and it occurred to us by row three that those numbers didn’t matter at all. We just had two places on the bus. And we got the last two seats for this 48-hour trip and they were the ones that were added as an afterthought over the stairwell in the back of the bus and the only ones that didn’t recline and over something that was really hot and really noisy and really bumpy. And I thought, this is going to be a long trip. Every time I stood up to stretch the bus driver would see me in the (INAUDIBLE) and he’d say, Mister, sit down. After a couple of — after the first day when he handed over the wheel to the first mate, before the guy could even get back to the bed behind the last seats, the new driver had run off the road and we were stuck for a day trying to get our bus off the Meridian. I woke up just with smoke and screams and sparks, and I thought this is going to be a short trip, but thank goodness nobody was hurt there. The next day, the driver realized we’re never going to let the second — the first mate drive anymore. And he just said, we’re going to just get to Tehran when we get to Tehran. When — I remember one time he said, OK, this bus is smelly. Everybody has to go into the river and take a bath. And we’re not going to Tehran until everybody takes a bath. And at night we would stay in these horrible hotels. The English-speaking people would hang out here. The French-speaking people would hang out there. We’d talk about, are we really going to get to Iran? And it was just the beginning of a trip. And we kept going farther and farther away from those traveler’s paradises like the Greek Isles, and we kept thinking we could still turn back. In three days, we could be in Santorini. But we kept pushing forward. And we finally crossed Khyber Pass, and we descended into India, and crossing into India was like the biggest high five moment I’ve ever had in my travel career.

ISAACSON: How did you just went through a bout of prostate cancer, I think it was, and that seemed to affect you, as even just the introduction in the book you mentioned some of these things. How does that affect you?

STEVES: Well, I’ve had — I had prostate cancer. I was diagnosed last summer, October. I got my surgery, took out my prostate and thankfully, my doctor — we’ve just tested my blood and my doctor says I can consider myself cancer free. And I’ve gone public on this and I think it’s very important for men to realize that just like women got to be tuned into their body when it comes to something like breast cancer, prostate cancer for men is our version of breast cancer. And I tackled this, Walter, like a traveler. It was for me a trip I didn’t know I was going to take. I was kind of thinking, you know, I’m 69 years old now. I never spend a night in the hospital until this. And you know, my time will come when I have some health challenge. And I wanted to be curious, I wanted to be positive, I wanted to be, you know, a good patient, I wanted to be thankful and tuned in. And it’s been a good experience. And right now, I’m just very, very thankful for the medical technology we have, for the amazing surgeon I’ve been blessed with, and the fact that we live in a country where we can get prostate cancer and reasonably expect to get over it. A lot of people don’t appreciate that, I don’t think. It’s very easy to see the problems in our society these days and complain about them. But this is a very, very good place to live if you’ve got a challenge like that.

ISAACSON: You talk about the difference between being a tourist and being a traveler, but I also want to get you to that next level you kind of mentioned. Tell me what it means to be a pilgrim.

STEVES: You’ve got an opportunity when you travel to broaden your perspective and have that transformational experience and go home with the best souvenir. And that’s an empathy for the other 96 percent of humanity. So, I think we can travel seeing that the road is playground, that’s a tourist. The road is school, that would be a traveler. And a lot of people say, I’m not a tourist, I’m a traveler. OK. Well, that means you’re going over there to learn and to be that cultural chameleon and broaden your perspective. Or the road can be church or mosque or synagogue, and that means you’re leaving home to learn about yourself and explore dimensions of life you might not be able to so well explore at home, and that’s travel as a pilgrim. And pilgrimage travel is very trendy these days, more people than ever seem to be taking the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. And I have a pilgrimage experience when I’m traveling. It can be just be poetic, to be thoughtful or to be more spiritual, but I find God on the road quite vividly. And I just think it’s a beautiful thing. Now, you don’t need to be a monk and you don’t need to be just a hedonist, but you can calibrate it. You can mix it. And that’s something we all have the opportunity for. And I think the default is going as a simple tourist. And the goal is to mix it up and be a tourist, a traveler, and a pilgrim. And that’s one of the things I teach a lot when I when I take my show on the road.

ISAACSON: Rick Steves, thank you so much for joining us.

STEVES: Thank you, Walter. It’s been a delight, and I wish you a bon voyage.