A new film, starring none other than the hippie-haired Julia Roberts, will only boost a phenomenon that has seen foreign visitors to Bali

Still crazy after all these years (except this time they are loaded)

One woman's spiritual quest spawned a multimillion-pound film franchise and sent tourists flocking to find themselves in six-star retreats

The Independent

Peace and love: Julia Roberts with Swami Dharmdev at Hari Mandir Ashram in New Delhi. The actress was shooting Eat Pray Love, the film of the book by Elizabeth Gilbert which has sold more than seven million copies

AP

Peace and love: Julia Roberts with Swami Dharmdev at Hari Mandir Ashram in New Delhi. The actress was shooting Eat Pray Love, the film of the book by Elizabeth Gilbert which has sold more than seven million copies

It is one of life's ultimate ironies. A book about one woman's spiritual quest to find herself has spawned a multimillion-pound film franchise and sparked a fresh stampede for the hippie trail she followed on her path to enlightenment.

Travel agents have rushed to cash in on the publishing sensation that is Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love – which has sold more than seven million copies since it came out four years ago – with special packages designed for the book's acolytes. A new film, starring none other than the hippie-haired Julia Roberts, will only boost a phenomenon that has seen foreign visitors to Bali, the Indonesian island that featured in the travel memoir, soar to a record 2.2 million last year.

In the book, Gilbert embarks on a journey of self-discovery after a messy divorce. Her alliterative route, which took in Italy, India and Indonesia, has rekindled interest in the mystical hippie trail, as popularised by the likes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the 1960s. The one difference is that this time round, rather than hitchhike their way across the vast expanses of the Asian subcontinent, or slum it in 50p-a-night hostels, travellers are hopping on planes and flexing their credit cards to check in to six-star former palaces that have been repackaged as retreats for the materially devout.