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What a Way to Go to India

A Butterfield’s Overland Tour: Vignettes of the 1970s

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Pub Date 28 Aug 2025 | Archive Date 22 Sep 2025


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Description

A humorous, colourful memoir set in the 1970s. What a Way to Go to India recounts an exciting, hair-raising adventure, executed on the very cheap, over a 6,000-mile, 28-day journey to India by public transport.

Richard Loosley and tour manager Ashley Butterfield used dodgy transport over appalling roads, ate food that was seriously detrimental to their health and stayed in inferior hotels which bordered on uninhabitable.

Together, they persuade an eclectic multi-national assortment of adventure-seeking travellers to follow them. Join them on this outrageous, hilarious journey masquerading as tourism in the 1970s. At one point they crammed 57 travellers into three old American pickup trucks, including luggage, to travel up the Khyber Pass, it seemed outrageous at the time, but this was the only way to reach the top. Follow their colourful journey through the majestic countryside, desserts, medieval cities, and bustling bazaars of Central Asia.

What a Way to Go to India vividly conjures up travel in the 1970s that can never be repeated in today’s political, religious, and post-Covid, war-troubled world with gentle humour and detailed reminiscences.

A humorous, colourful memoir set in the 1970s. What a Way to Go to India recounts an exciting, hair-raising adventure, executed on the very cheap, over a 6,000-mile, 28-day journey to India by public...


A Note From the Publisher

Richard Loosley has been a professional worldwide traveller for fifty years and has visited 70 countries and six continents. He previously ran his own travel and tour operating companies, hosted and spoke at public relations events, and was also a commissioning editor for three years, compiling a worldwide hotel guide. Richard now lives in Suffolk. He enjoys motorcycling, writing, and studying English social and colonial history.

Richard Loosley has been a professional worldwide traveller for fifty years and has visited 70 countries and six continents. He previously ran his own travel and tour operating companies, hosted and...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781806340392
PRICE £5.99 (GBP)
PAGES 344

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Average rating from 3 members


Featured Reviews

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I am not normally one to read a memoir but I am so happy that I read this one! It was absolutely lovely but also hilarious, in the best way! It is beautifully written with lovely dialogue. I highly recommend!!

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Enjoyable read and made me smile throughout,a detailed and sometimes frantic look at independent travel and the people who organise it and the people who travel
Great descriptions of the travel itself and the places visited
Interesting to see how life and travel has changed in a relatively short space of time
A good read

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A fun travel read about an era in travel that has sadly passed. i enjoyed hearing about how the adventurous made their way to India in the past.

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