Steves and his friend travel mostly by local buses, including an epic journey from Istanbul to Tehran that he described as three miserable days in a bus driven by a man he dubbed ‘the

The map below shows the location of Istanbul and Kathmandu. The blue line represents the straight line joining these two place. The distance shown is the straight line or the air travel distance between Kathmandu and Istanbul. Load Map What is the travel ...

Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer,” features photographs, a foldout map and reproductions of journal pages.

(In this exclusive excerpt from Rick Steves’ “On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer,” Steves leaves his friend Gene Openshaw at a hotel to recover from a persistent stomach ailment and sets out to explore Kabul, Afghanistan, on his own.)