Brussels to Beirut to Bali: The 1958 World Travels of Four Girls in a Second-Hand Chevy

Being a guide at the American Pavilion during the 1958 World’s Fair in Belgium would be the adventure of a lifetime for most. But for four extraordinarily adventurous young women, it was merely a jumping off point.

Buying a 1953 Chevy in Brussels, they drove through Europe, Turkey and into the war torn Middle East. When civil upheaval in Iraq threatened to disrupt their plan to circle the globe, they sold the car and traveled by any means available: British mail lorries through the Khyber Pass, cargo planes across Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, third class trains through India and student buses across Eastern Java.

Traveling alone through 26 countries, the four young single women were an unusual sight in these exotic locales. From sipping cocktails and playing tennis with high society, to bunking in hostels and even a brothel, they experienced extraordinary kindness and occasional suspicion but most of all they experienced the world as it was in 1958.

Former journalist Dana Matthaei Kent
provides an intriguing narrative of her real life adventure experiencing Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in 1958. Her youthful and candid observations provide us with a
fascinating glimpse of these exotic locales in a more innocent time and isolated world.