Although this movement embraces a fair bit of the '60s psychedelic counterculture, this ain't your parents' hippie happening. Trance travelers are part of the cutting edge. They're plugged in and cyber-savvy. And they're spreading their message of peace, love and personal freedom with technology that flattens international borders in the click of a mouse. This wouldn't work if e-mail and the Internet wasn't possible.
Technology is the lifeblood of the cyber-hippie scene.
Information about trance gatherings is disseminated via the Internet. At the festivals themselves, giant screens billow in the wind as dancers bliss out to fantastical computer-created video sequences. He's also a computer programmer who used to work for Microsoft. He had a healthy paycheck, stock options and a black Jetta with a sunroof before he gave it all up to travel around the world with a backpack. Although the trance scene draws people from all backgrounds, it's high-techers like de Goede who make up a surprisingly large number of cyber hippies.