With some exceptions I think the readership of HN is generally under age 45... If any of you happen to know people who were part of the counterculture in the late 1960s and early 70s, and know folks aged 60 to 75, ask them about stories of traveling overland from Istanbul to India. There was a well trod route of backpackers traveling through Afghanistan in the pre-soviet-invasion era, when it was safe, cheap and welcoming.
As the Middle East and Southwest Asia became less hospitable to tourists, the Hippie Trail kinda fell out of favor. The "new" trails are the Banana Pancake Trail (same idea as the Hippie Trail, but in booming Southeast Asia) and the Gringo Trail in South America. Although these "trails" are much different because of a lot of reasons discussed elsewhere in this thread, such as less hitchhiking, more "flashpacking", and generally increased connectivity.
Yep ,I still met some last disoriented hippies in 79 in Bali and Lombok. There were about 5 travellers in the whole of Lombok and the long beach in Kuta belonged to me alone for five days.
One thing the map doesn't quite get right, with my knowledge of Afghanistan geography, is that traveling through the country was not a straight shot from herat to Kabul... Mountains and almost impassable roads in between, in the exact centre of the country, meant at the time, and now, there's generally two viable routes.
Going straight through the center of the country, through Ghor and Bamiyan provinces requires a high clearance 4x4. For more normal vehicles, one route from herat to the northern provinces and the Mazar-e-sharif region, then salang pass to Kabul. Or go southeast from herat to Kandahar, and then Kandahar to Kabul.
Also there was a fair portion of the hippie trail that went to Kabul, then to Kandahar, and to Quetta, bypassing peshwar and the nwfp. Though the cannabis lovers certainly all wanted to visit oeshawart.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/christian-caryl/strange-rebel...