1976. The ass end of the hippie era. Adrift in college, Mark Orwoll drops out in favor of the hitchhiker's road through Europe, the U.K., and Morocco. Along the way, he hangs out with Beat Generation poets, gets dosed on acid at an illegal rock festival, loses everything he owns to thieves, and decidedly does NOT learn how to ride a camel. He would also find his calling in life—at 4 p.m. on July 17, 1976, over a beer on the terrace of the Café Select in Montparnasse. Harps, trumpets, and cathedralesque sunbeams may have been involved. These are the last days, as it turns out, of hitchhiking through Europe, before the world became too dangerous a place.

The then-22-year-old author, as directionless in life as he is on the backroads of the Continent and North Africa, is standing by the side of the German Autobahn, thumb stuck out for a lift, dreaming about girls, weed, and adventure. He manages to find all three, and much more besides. He also decides, in a rare moment of clarity, to become a journalist (which ultimately would lead to a 40-year career in newspapers, magazines, and television).

Less a nostalgic paean to a golden era than a timeless coming-of-age story, Orwoll’s new travel memoir, Just One Little Hitch, is adorned with bullfights, unlikely friendships, Dickensian bookstores with Murphy beds behind the bookshelves, thievery, sex, hippie festivals, heart-rending generosity, strange comestibles, and other discoveries made across the face of Western Europe and Morocco.

Just One Little Hitch proves that the best stories result when things unexpectedly go south.

Just One Little Hitch is an adventurous, funny, and tender journey, not just along the bohemian byways of Europe, but through the joys and abundant absurdities of the human spirit.