For Americans of a certain age and income bracket, Europe is synonymous with Rick Steves, a one-man travel impresario whose guidebooks and tour groups have introduced the continent to thousands of newcomers. Before he became his own brand, Steves was just another scruffy backpacker abroad, an experience he recounts in On the Hippie Trail , a new book that follows his travels across India and Central Asia in the 1970s.

Most youthful trips start with a burst of excitement, and On the Hippie Trail’s opening chapters bring to mind A Time of Gifts , Patrick Leigh Fermor’s classic account of his teenage journey across Europe in the 1930s, and an obvious literary antecedent. The parallels between the two books go beyond their diaristic formats and exotic settings. Both are glimpses i

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