These travellers were known as the overlanders; mainly young Europeans, North Americans and Australians in search of alternative tourism, who traveled as cheaply as possible from the late 1950s to the 1970s, networking with other adventurers and hippies as they traversed the off-beat routes by bus, rail or thumb. The roads were also shared by the overlanders who chose to make their own way across the foreign landscapes in banged up second-hand cars, VW vans and motorcycles, many of which would never make it back west (vehicle or perpetual traveler). See more: http://bit.ly/1gGpUht