GOA — Elisabeth Ramnacher, a German who prefers to go by the name Yogini, wanted to show her employees what Goa used to look like back in its hippie days. The only trouble was, she couldn’t find a picture of herself with clothes on.

When hippies traveled overland from Europe to India decades ago, Goa was often the final stop on the trail, welcoming to its beaches Westerners who wanted to drop out in a place where living was cheap, drugs plentiful and swimming nude the norm.

“Goans’ attitude and openness allowed the hippie culture to thrive,” said Ms. Ramnacher, 58, who first came in the 1980s and now owns the popular Villa Blanche cafe here in Goa.

But most of the original countercultural community is now gone. It has fallen victim to age, higher costs of living and the death of the hippie trail in the late 1970s, as wars closed the route.