ran and the Hippie Trail
During the height of the movement, Iran was one of the stops along the famous “Hippie Trail,” a transcontinental route that stretched from Europe to South Asia. This trail, followed by thousands of young Westerners, wound its way through cities like Istanbul, Tehran, Kabul, and on to India and Nepal — lands perceived as mystical, untouched by Western consumerism, and rich with spiritual traditions.
Yet the Iran that awaited these youthful idealists was not what many expected.
As one report noted, “The hippies in Tehran are not very happy with their situation. They are in a hurry to get out of this crowded and fashionable city as soon as possible. All their dreams and fantasies that Iran is a mythical country are shattered when they see this city of three million people with a large economy where people are looking for work to make as much money as possible.” Tehran, bustling and modernizing under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was anything but an exotic paradise. For travelers used to laid-back communes and open drug scenes in places like San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the urban sprawl and conservative undercurrents of Tehran offered a stark contrast.
Many hippies, disillusioned by the reality of the Iranian capital, sought immediate passage to the next stop: Afghanistan. There, cities like Kabul promised the kind of easy living, open drug access, and cultural mystique that Tehran seemed to deny them. But their presence in Iran, however transient, left a mark — and provoked sharp criticism.
Intellectual and Cultural Backlash
The Iranian press and intellectuals of the time viewed the influx of Western hippies with disdain. Far from romanticizing the countercultural travelers, Iranian scholars and opinion-makers labeled them as symbols of Western decadence. “Iranian intellectuals are highly critical of the work of hippies and consider hippieism to be a disease of civilization and excessive comfort,” wrote one contemporary observer. The few media portrayals that did appear were cautionary in tone, warning Iranian youth of the dangers of “hippieism” and advocating instead for hard work, patriotism, and cultural pride.