If you want a "modern" take on UUCP, there's NNCP [1] which encrypts packets and offers a TCP transfer mode out of the box. It also has the concept of multicast arenas to send packets to multiple hosts at a time. There's no real concept of paths, but you can write one atop NNCP if you'd like.

[1a]: https://www.complete.org/nncp/ a site with info about NNCP

[1b]: http://www.nncpgo.org/ the official site.

There's also a Matrix room and an IRC channel for questions and general community if you're interested.