Many who read of such pioneering trips were less interested in science or mountaineering than with the descriptions of the exotic places and cultures on the way. Air travel was in its infancy and prohibitively expensive, but for those seeking adventure the prospect of an epic overland journey was both attractive and increasingly affordable.
The first established British bus company to ply the overland route was The Indiaman in 1957,, closely followed by Swagman Tours(later renamed Asian Greyhound). These began as one-man operations catering for
a handful of adventurous travellers, and as the economy boomed and the market grew, other bus companies started to spring up in the 1960s.
The first overland travellers who might be described as hippies appeared in about 1967, when the term became shorthand for just about anyone with long hair. The concept of the "mystic east" was gaining interest, and after The Beatles visited India in a blaze of publicity in 1968 the number of young people hitting the road from western Europe began to increase dramatically.
And they weren't all Europeans. Americans and Canadians crossed the Atlantic to take part, Australians and New Zealanders had a strong backpacking tradition and found the route convenient. Westerners of all nationalities were represented.
They had many reasons for going: some sought spiritual enlightenment, some were escaping from a rigid conventional lifestyle, some saw opportunities for profit, and some just wanted to see the world. They all had a sense of adventure, but not all of them could be described as hippies - many were simply keen to explore the overland route to the east, first blazed by Marco Polo.
But from the late 1960s onwards the largest contingent, united by a common interest, were the young people with long hair who gave the hippie trail its name - and what defined the hippie trail was that it led to the major hashish-producing centres of the world.
Afghanistan, Chitral, Kashmir, Nepal - familiar names to the pot-smokers of the sixties and seventies, most of whom knew very little else about the countries where their herb of choice was cultivated. But for the next ten years or so they set off in their thousands to look for it.
Overland bus companies sprang up to cater for them, advertising cheap tickets in the "underground press". They shared the road with a motley procession of private cars, vans, minibuses, even motorbikes.
Many vehicles never made it all the way, and many more never made it back. It was, after all, a journey of over 6,000 miles in each direction, and it took in high mountain passes, scorching deserts, and some very rough roads.
Popular legend tells of the Magic Bus that left from Amsterdam - except that it never did. The company was merely a booking agency and didn't actually own any buses. Passengers were found places aboard the scores of independent coaches that plied the route. Other companies such as Budget Bus did actually run their own small fleet of vehicles.
Public transport was another option. Although the railway in those days ended in eastern Turkey, from Istanbul onwards there were cheap local buses, and western drivers also picked up passengers from the city's famous Pudding Shop, where rides in independent vehicles could often be arranged. Access to cheap rail travel resumed in Pakistan and India.
People also hitch-hiked, particularly on the way home, though this was usually only possible in Europe, and the cost of public transport was extremely low in Asia. Westerners who could drive were sometimes paid to take vehicles from Germany to Lebanon or Iran, another way of affording the trip.
The route of the hippie trail essentially started at Istanbul, the point at which all roads from Europe converged. From here the direct route led straight across Turkey, though some headed south for Lebanon, for centuries the main hashish producer of the Middle East.
From Turkey the route continued across Iran, then a secular country run by the Shah, and on to Afghanistan, the first major destination of the hippie trail, a land where foreigners were made very welcome and where a large proportion of the population used hashish themselves.
After Afghanistan the trail offered many diversions. On entering Pakistan some would head north towards Chitral, but the majority crossed the country and entered India, where a trip up to Kashmir was an immediate option for enthusiastic potheads. Northern India also offered Manali, another popular destination for hippies and another centre of marijuana cultivation.
In winter months most hippies would head south for the beaches of Goa, where hashish was always freely available (though it was not actually produced there). But in the summer the hippie trail ended in the mountains of Nepal, where until 1973 there were many hashish shops operating legally, and where there was no real difficulty obtaining the world's finest charas afterwards.
Visas, where required, could be obtained easily at the borders or towns en route. British passport holders did not require a visa to stay in India long-term.
GOA SPACE - Hippie Trail