Author Rick Steves has spent more than 40 years guiding tourists through Europe and beyond.

Now, in his latest book, "On the Hippie Trail," he rewinds to one of his earliest adventures-a journey from Istanbul to Kathmandu, Nepal, in the late 1970s.

"I wrote this for myself. There was a hardbound empty book, I did that with every trip, and I had this passion and this fanaticism to write down all my experiences very vividly," Steves said during an interview Tuesday on "Mornings On 1," explaining that the journal was never meant to be published.

"And you know, life happens. You get home and you forget about it, you put it in a box and then during the pandemic I had a chance to read it, and I thought, 'This is like an anthropological dig into a 23-year-old version of myself when I was totally green and naïve.' But, as the subtitle of the book mentions clearly, a travel-writer-in-training," he said.

His best advice from the book? People should embrace their journeys through unknown areas by acting like temporary locals.

“I’m sort of like a chameleon. I change from country to country. When I cross a border, I absorb what I’m supposed to be,” he said.