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Throwback to 1982: My First Travel Newsletter

Thirty-five years ago, we licked the stamps, mailed out our first travel newsletter, and began the process of creating a community of travelers. It was 1982 — there was no Internet (or even fax machines), and travelers communicated with loved ones via “aerogram.”

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Back then, we had a few hundred people on our mailing list, we had published only one book, and we took about 50 travelers a year on tours (eight at a time, on a minibus with me behind the wheel). Now, we’re closing in on a half-million Facebook fans, we’ve published well over 50 guidebook titles , and over a hundred guides lead 22,000 travelers on Rick Steves’ Europe Tours every year.

In 1982, I was a piano teacher. I used my recital hall, Steves Studios, to share travel tips with 50 people at a time in my “World Travelers’ Slide Club.” Now we produce a weekly public radio show ( Travel with Rick Steves ) that airs on 400 stations across the country. We just produced show #498, and we’ve never charged a station a penny for the program. It is, in spirit, the direct descendant of the World Travelers’ Slide Club.

When I dropped these first newsletters into the mailbox, I never could have envisioned how, over the years, employing great people and embracing technology would so drastically expand our reach. But one thing hasn’t changed in 35 years: We still teach Americans to travel smartly — enjoying, as I liked to say even back then, “maximum experience for every mile, minute, and dollar.”

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Rick Steves on the Return of Travel and Why It Matters

The travel writer and TV personality is back in Europe, planning itineraries for next year. Travel, he says, can help us understand the world. Here’s how he recommends doing it.

By Paige McClanahan

On a recent morning, Rick Steves was wandering around the ancient Tuscan town of Volterra with a new crop of tour guides. His company’s trips to Europe are set to resume in February after a nearly two-year pandemic hiatus, and the guides were midway through a nine-day trip around Italy to learn “what makes a Rick Steves tour a Rick Steves tour.” One of the stops on their itinerary was Volterra, a medieval hilltop town whose stone walls are 800 years old. Mr. Steves — who has been to Tuscany many times for his popular public broadcasting show and YouTube channel — was relishing being back.

“We’re surrounded by the wonders of what we love so much, and it just makes our endorphins do little flip-flops,” he said during a phone interview.

That unabashed enthusiasm has fueled Mr. Steves’s empire of guidebooks, radio shows and TV programs, as well as tours that have taken hundreds of thousands of Americans overseas since he started running them in 1980.

Along the way, Mr. Steves has built a reputation for convincing hesitant Americans to make their first trip abroad — and that first trip is often to Europe, which Mr. Steves has called “the wading pool for world exploration.” But he also speaks passionately about the value of travel to places like El Salvador and Iran, and he’s open about how his time in other countries has shaped his views on issues like world hunger and the legalization of marijuana.

But Europe remains Mr. Steves’s bread and butter, and he’s back on the Continent now — both to prepare for the return of his tours and to work on a six-hour series on European art and architecture that he hopes will be broadcast on U.S. public television next fall. As he wandered through Volterra, we talked about why he doesn’t count the number of countries he’s visited, why his tour company will require vaccinations and why a world without travel would be a more dangerous place.

Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

What does it feel like to be back in Europe?

I’m working with 20 guides here and people are almost tearfully emotional about the rekindling of tourism. Professional tour guides have been on hold for two seasons, and they’re just so filled with joy to be able to do what they do, because guides are wired to enthuse and inspire and teach about their culture and their art and their history. And it’s just so fun to be here and be filled with hope. And while we’re still in the pandemic, we’re also coming out of it and there’s an energy in the streets and in the museums.

Do you think Americans are ready to travel overseas again?

I would say it’s not for everybody, but if you don’t mind being well-organized and if you’re enthusiastic about following the regulations and rules, it’s not a big deal. And Europe is ahead of the United States, I believe, in fighting Covid. There’s a huge respect for masks. More museums are requiring reservations to get in because they want to make sure it’s not crowded. It’s kind of a blessing, actually. I was just in the Vatican Museum and really enjoying the Sistine Chapel because it wasn’t so darned crowded. That was an amazing experience for me because the last time I was there, I had to wear shoulder pads.

You have long held that travel can do a lot of good in the world, but what about carbon emissions, overcrowding and other negative effects of travel?

Climate change is a serious problem and tourism contributes a lot to it, but I don’t want to be flight-shamed out of my travels, because I think travel is a powerful force for peace and stability on this planet. So my company has a self-imposed carbon tax of $30 per person we take to Europe. In 2019, we gave $1 million to a portfolio of organizations that are fighting climate change. We gave half that amount in 2020, even though we stopped bringing people to Europe after the pandemic hit. It’s nothing heroic. It’s just the ethical thing to do.

And in terms of other problems, when you go to Europe, you can consume in a way that doesn’t dislocate pensioners and ruin neighborhoods. Landlords anywhere in the world can make more money renting to short-term tourists than long-term local people . So, if you complain that a city is too touristy and you’re staying in an Airbnb — well, you’re part of the problem.

But we would be at a great loss if we stopped traveling, and the world would become a more dangerous place. We need to travel in a “leave only footprints, take only photos” kind of way. What you want to do is bring home the most beautiful souvenir, and that’s a broader perspective and a better understanding of our place on the planet — and then employ that broader perspective as a citizen of a powerful nation like the United States that has a huge impact beyond our borders.

How do you try to encourage people to travel in a meaningful way?

The responsibility of the travel writer is to help people travel smarter, with more experience, and more economically and more efficiently. And everybody has their own idea of what that is, but for me, it’s about remembering that travel is all about people. It’s about getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new. So we’re trying to help Americans travel in a way that’s more experiential and more thought-provoking and more transformational. You know, you can have transformational travel or you can just have a shopping trip and a bucket list.

You’ve said that you don’t keep track of how many countries you’ve visited. Why is that?

Why would you? Is it a contest? Anybody who brags about how many countries they’ve been to — that’s no basis for the value of the travel they’ve done. You could have been to 100 countries and learned nothing, or you can go to Mexico and be a citizen of the planet. I find that there’s no correlation between people who count their countries and people who open their heart and their soul to the cultures they’re in.

I hear you’re working on a big new project. What’s that about?

Something I’ve been preparing to do for 20 years is to collect all the most beautiful art experiences we’ve included in our TV show and weave it together into a six-hour series of European art and architecture. We’ve been working on the show for the last year, and it’s going to be my opus magnum, my big project. It’s going to make art accessible and meaningful to people in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen on TV before. I’m inspired by people who have done art series in the past, and I’ve got a way to look at it through the lens of a traveler. I’m very excited about it. It’s just a cool creative challenge.

What have things been like for your tour company since the pandemic hit?

Well, 2019 was our best year ever. We took 30,000 Americans on about 1,200 different tours and we were just euphoric. We had 2020 essentially sold out when Covid hit, and then we had to cancel everything, so we had to send back 24,000 deposits. We all hunkered down, and I’ve done what I can to keep my staff intact. A couple of months ago, we decided we’re confident about the spring of 2022, so we opened the floodgates and immediately those 24,000 people that had to cancel two years ago — basically, they re-signed up. And now we’ve got 29,000 people signed up out of 30,000 seats for next year.

So we’re doing really good, but we just have to continue the diligence in our society and in Europe of fighting Covid responsibly. So I’m kind of losing patience with anti-vaxxers. Maybe they’re exercising their liberty, but they’re also impacting a lot of other people. So we’ve just decided to require that people have vaccinations to go on our tours. Here in Europe, unvaccinated people would be standing outside most of the time anyway — because they couldn’t get into the restaurants, onto the train, onto the bus or into the museums. The world is getting progressively smaller for people who want to travel but not get a vaccination.

Do you think travel will ever feel normal again?

There were certain people who decided they didn’t want to travel after 9/11 because they didn’t want to deal with security. You know, those people have a pretty low bar for folding up their shop. I got used to the security after 9/11, and I’m getting used to Covid standards now. But I do think that, come next year, we’ll be back to traveling again — and I hope that we’ll all be better for it.

Paige McClanahan is the host of The Better Travel Podcast .

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Rick Steves Says Hold On to Your Travel Dreams

By Rachel Syme

To a certain subset of anxious but enthusiastic middle-class Americans—for those who yearn to see Paris before they die, and want to make sure they don’t miss a croissant or fresco while they’re there—Rick Steves is a bona-fide celebrity. His voice in his popular series of guidebooks is, by his own admission, oozing with dad vibes; bad puns flow from his fingers alongside gee-golly exclamations of wonder about the majesty of marble buttresses. On his YouTube channel and in promotional materials, he tends to wear bluejeans and wire-frame spectacles and billowy button-up shirts. A Times profile labelled him as “one of the legendary PBS superdorks—right there in the pantheon with Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross and Big Bird.” But this effusive uncoolness is a feature of Steves’s work, not a bug. His guidebooks are approachable, silly, and even subtly provocative in their insistence that Americans show respect for the people and places they are visiting and not the other way around. Thanks to the Internet, there are more resources than ever when it comes to planning a trip. You don’t need a guidebook if you have Google. And yet, miraculously, Steves’s empire has kept expanding. 2020, he told me, was poised to be the best year ever for his company, whose offerings now encompass guided tours abroad, books, podcasts, TV shows, blogs, and lectures, all churned out by some hundred employees.

That was before the pandemic, of course. Last spring, travel to Europe—Steves’s entire raison d’être is getting stubborn Americans to take transatlantic flights—was restricted or fully banned. Italy was, for a terrifying period, a chaotic center of the COVID crisis. Steves had to cancel twenty-four thousand bookings for European tours and dramatically rethink what he would do as long as the world remained clamped down. In lieu of his own routine globetrotting, he has had to mostly sit tight, in his house north of Seattle. Steves is now sixty-six, with a head of salt-and-pepper hair and the warm, mellow vibe of a public-radio personality. In a recent conversation, he told me about his early days giving lectures on how to travel on the cheap and selling his first, self-published guidebook out of the trunk of his car. He was getting ready to hike Mont Blanc, his first trip abroad since March of 2020. He told me what he thinks the next chapter of post-pandemic travel might look like, and why you should always order whatever beverage the locals are having. Our conversation has been condensed and edited.

Where are you in the world?

I’m just sitting here in my beautiful little office at home, in my little town of Edmonds. I just gave a talk at the Rotary Club this morning. I got a nice walk in.

I know you are a big walker.

I get a lot of exercise when I’m in Europe. My body is used to it for four months out of the year. It’s this hunter-gatherer rhythm, where I can hibernate in the winter and get out in the wilds in the summer.

What was the Rotary Club talk about?

Travel after COVID .

What was your message?

Well, you could get all the experts together on a panel and they don’t really know what travel is going to be like. My spiel is, if I had to predict, we’re going to get back to a sort of normalcy. Kind of like airports after 9/11. People said travel will never be the same. Well, airports will never be the same, but they’re still airports, even though you don’t have vast lobbies where you kind of glide across, and you’ve got all sorts of T.S.A. apparati, and you don’t have your loved ones taking you to the gates. I think travel is still going to be travel.

When the pandemic first hit, did you have to cancel a trip?

Every year since I was a kid—so, like, forty years—I’ve planned a hundred days in Europe. When COVID hit, I had every hotel booked. We were going to make two TV shows in Poland and two TV shows in Iceland. I was going to fly to Turkey, because I wanted to check in on Turkey! Then I had to cancel that. And we had twenty-four thousand people signed up on Rick Steves tours.

Oh, my God.

Twenty-four thousand people’s travel dreams! They’d saved up. We just had to tell them, Here’s your money back. I was really determined from the get-go not to do what embarrasses me about a lot of other companies in the tourism industry, which is keep their money and give them credit. I just told my staff, O.K., we want to give every penny back. When it’s time to go again, we’ll let you know.

You still live where you grew up, right?

Right. It’s got a ferry dock. It’s got a Main Street. It’s the first real town north of Seattle. I never get tired of this.

It’s interesting to me that for such a globetrotter, you have not really moved. What’s that about?

That’s a good question. I think if you’re going to travel a lot—and I’ve spent a third of my adult life living out of a suitcase—when I come home, I like to be rooted in my community. I’m close to nature here. It’s nice just to be here and to not be Mr. Travel. I’m just Rick who lives on Edmund Street.

Did you ever consider moving to Europe full time?

No. I like to move around a lot in Europe. That’s the fun thing. I’ve toyed with buying a little idyllic place, like in “Under the Tuscan Sun” or something like that, but then I’d have to go back to that place. I don’t want to go back! For me, Europe is the wading pool for world exploration. My favorite countries may be elsewhere. I like Indonesia and India and Japan and Central America just as much when it comes to travel, but I’ve got a calling in life. And that is to inspire Americans to venture beyond Orlando. The practical goal is to get people who have been to Disney World four or five times to try Portugal. It won’t bite you.

I was actually planning to go to Portugal for the first time, right when the pandemic hit. I was so bummed not to go.

I know, I’m bummed, too. But our mantra has been: COVID can derail our travel plans, but it cannot stop our travel dreams. On our social media, we started something called “daily dose of Europe.” I’ve also been hosting this thing called Monday Night Travel. We have two Zoom shows at five-thousand-person capacity every Monday. There’s an early show and a late show, or one show with me sober and one show with me more tipsy.

So you drink and just . . . talk about travelling somewhere? Is there a theme?

Yes! Like, “Today we’re going to Scotland, I’m drinking whisky ! We’re going to have some shortbread, and I’ve got my friend from Scotland who woke up at three o’clock in the morning to be with us!”

I want to go all the way back. What was your childhood like? Did your parents travel before they were married?

My dad was a band director, and then he was a piano tuner, and then eventually a piano importer. My mom was just a hardworking homemaker. They amaze me with what they were able to do with three kids. Because we always had a boat, we always had a camper, and we always went skiing. Every Friday, they’d pick us up at school and, if it was sunny, we’d go to the islands. If it was rainy, we’d go east to the mountains. They really had this adventurous spirit on a meagre budget. Then somebody recommended that my dad import pianos from Germany. I remember I came home from school one day, and my dad said, “Son, we’re going to Europe to see the piano factories!” I thought, That’s a stupid idea. But I was fourteen years old. It opened my eyes to the world.

You watched the moon landing in Norway that year, right?

I was with my relatives in Norway, sitting on the carpet, watching Neil Armstrong. I remember even as a little egocentric and ethnocentric fourteen-year-old thinking, Well, back at home all of my friends are waving American flags like “Yay, America!” In Norway, people were celebrating it also, and they weren’t Americans. I was really thankful to have that little jolt.

So after that first trip to Europe, you just had to get back?

Yeah, I went a couple of times with my parents. We were in this wonderful classic train station, the Copenhagen train station, and I remember looking at kids a couple years older than me with their Eurail passes and their rucksacks. I looked over at my mom and dad, and I thought, I don’t need you guys for this. Europe can be my playground. And I vowed to go back to Europe every summer after that. And at first I was just travelling purely for kicks. I was a piano teacher. The kids wouldn’t practice in the summer. I fully expected to be a piano teacher all my life.

Were you pretty broke when you first started going to Europe a lot?

Oh, I was very broke. I was travelling on peanuts, on three dollars a day or something like that. It was my “Europe through the gutter” days, I like to say. And then I got really good at travelling. And what was just as clear to me was, other people were making the same mistakes I had learned from my own school of hard knocks. And I thought, What a shame . They only have one trip, and they’re screwing up.

I know you started out by giving local talks about travelling on a budget in the nineteen-seventies. What was the first talk you did?

It was called “European Travel Cheap,” and it was at the University of Washington, at the Experimental College. I remember I wanted to take the hippie bus from Istanbul to Kathmandu across Asia. It was the thing you did back in the seventies. And it was a mystery—there weren’t good guidebooks back then for this kind of thing. And there was a guy, an old hippie vagabond, who was giving a talk, who had done this. So I’m sitting there with twenty other travel dreamers who wanted to do this epic trip, and he sat there in front of us totally unprepared. And I remember thinking, This is criminal . And I thought, I’ve got the information for Europe, and I should be sharing it. Inspired by that guy’s lousy class for the hippie bus across Asia, I put together “European Travel Cheap.” It was six Wednesday evenings. I thought fifty kids from the dorm would sign up. A hundred parents signed up.

My first book, “ Europe Through The Back Door ,” was 1980. I self-published it. Rented an I.B.M. Selectric typewriter. And my roommate was an artist, so he sketched it. I think I spent, like, two thousand dollars to take this hundred-and-eighty-page book up to the local publisher. I picked up two thousand copies in my station wagon and sold them for five dollars each. When you write a book, even if it’s worthless, it gives you credibility. People think, Oh, he’s an author.

How did you find the trademark Rick Steves voice?

I’m a big practitioner of reading your writing out loud before you call it done. If I had a little trick, it is not being formal and not being highfalutin with my writing. I make dad jokes, and I’m a sucker for alliteration. I think people want to be put at ease. Like, it’s O.K. to be a little dorky. It’s O.K. to laugh in a museum. You can be looking at the “Pietà” and you can still laugh.

How have you tried to keep innovating your tips since the seventies?

I’ve had a Maslow’s hierarchy of travel needs over the last decades. I didn’t have a big plan. But if I look back on it, the first decade was about cheap tricks—you know, you’ve got to catch the train, you’ve got to get a hotel, and get dinner. Then I wanted to talk about appreciating the culture, the history, the art, the cuisine. I can’t save you money on the cost to see the Roman aqueduct at Avignon, the Pont du Gard, but I can help you understand it better.

And where on this hierarchy do your more political takes on travel come in?

After 9/11, I found myself kind of politicized. People would hire me to go all over the country and give talks, thinking I’m going to talk about a nice hike and a nice café, and here I’m talking about drug-policy reform and legislating morality and environmental issues and how Europe is dealing with the fallout of an economy built on colonialism or whatever. And they said, “We didn’t hire you to talk about politics.” And then I thought, Well, I’d better change the name of my talk. So I started calling it “Travel as a Political Act.”

It really came along with this idea that I think is so fundamental, which is, the most frightened people are the people who don’t travel. Fear is for people who don’t get out very much.

Have you ever had a confrontation with somebody on one of your tours over the years, somebody who really didn’t want to step outside their box?

Yeah. There are simple things. Like when you fill out the little form at the hotel with your birthday. My birthday is May 10, 1955. All my life I’ve had it as 5/10/55. And in Europe it’s 10/5/55. We go middle, little, big—month, day, year. And we think that’s the normal way to do it. They go in a progression, little, middle, big. It’s more logical. A lot of my very ethnocentric travellers clench their fist and they draw back and they say, “I’m not going to let you tell me how to fill in this form. We fought and died for your way of life,” this sort of attitude.

Do you think now, in the current climate, you can push people further politically?

Yeah. I try to do reflective travel, like sitting down in the city hall in Oslo with a cousin of mine with one of my groups to talk about how people in Scandinavia so willingly pay high taxes. They hear it from a Scandinavian, and it’s much easier than for me to say, “ We should have progressive taxation where wealthy people would pay more of their share.” You’ve got to be careful, because you don’t want to just rag on people who are on vacation.

I want to ask about this concept of seeming like a tourist. When I was a teen-ager, I travelled with my parents and I remember they had one of your guidebooks. I was so embarrassed to have it out. I was like, “Mom and Dad, put that away! I don’t want anyone to know we’re tourists! ”

Well, we all dream that we could be invisible, but I think it’s futile. People are going to know. Should you have a camera bouncing on your belly and be speaking really loud and wearing a baseball cap and talking at people instead of with them? Of course not. I want to be a cultural chameleon when I travel. But I know that kids cringe when their parents get out their guidebooks. My family laughs every time I go on vacation, because I’ve got an itinerary and I’m writing it down. People roll their eyes, but somebody’s got to take the responsibility.

You sound like this extremely supercharged version of my dad. He’s the same on vacation. He’s like, “We’re waking up at six and we’re walking up to this mountain and we’re going to get to the top.” And I was always like, “I just want to read a novel on the balcony.”

If there’s a group of people without a leader, it just grinds to a halt. Somebody needs to go, “Do you know that museums are closed tomorrow? And this museum requires a reservation?” When I was a kid, I would travel with my friends from the dorm, and I was always organizing and they were complaining and sometimes I would just go on strike. And then after a few minutes they go, “O.K., Rick, you be the guide.” And then we got things done again.

Don’t you ever just go anywhere to sit on a beach?

If I’m on vacation, I love to be in the moment, but I rarely go on vacation. I’ve got a mission. I’d love to go to the South Pacific. It’s one place I’d really love to go. I’ve never been there. But if somebody gave me an all-expenses-paid ten-day trip to Fiji in a beautiful resort hotel and all the drinks and food I wanted, I’d think instead, For ten days, I really need to go to Spain and update my book for Andalusia.

How did your travelling impact your own family when your kids were young? I know you were gone for the summers, and they would come sometimes, but also you were away a lot.

It was terrible. I compromised my fathering and my parenting, and it was a hard choice. And I was caught up in the personal challenge of building a business. And it was costly to my relationship. We ended up getting a divorce. My kids for a long time did not like my work. Work was a four-letter word. Now I’ve got a wonderful relationship with my kids. And I would probably do it a little bit differently in retrospect, because once you’re done with those parenting years, you can’t get them back. But in the midst of it all, I was just doing my best.

Did you travel a lot with your wife before you had kids?

I don’t travel with people for fun. I just don’t. I travel alone, because I get more done when I’m on the road.

Do people ever accuse you of being Eurocentric, like “Rick, get off the Europe thing already”?

They do. But the name of my business is “Rick Steves’ Europe.” And I’m not saying it’s the whole world. There’s a lot going on on this planet! But I really believe if you’re going to be a teacher, it’s good to have a focus.

Let’s come back to this idea of “cultural chameleonism.” How do you suggest people achieve that abroad?

For a lot of people, their default is, “O.K., I want to drink, and my favorite drink is this Martini.” Well, you’ve got to get away from that when you’re travelling, O.K.? The question is not, Where can I get my drink? but, What do local people drink here ? When I’m travelling, I physically change from country to country. When I’m in Greece, I go for a glass of ouzo. I never come home after a long day of work in Seattle and think, I’d like a nice cloudy glass of ouzo. That’s almost ridiculous. But when I’m in Greece, I don’t let a sunset go by without having a nice glass of ouzo.

Well, that does sound lovely.

When people tell me chocolate is to die for, that’s baloney! Unless you’re in Belgium, then chocolate’s really important. And when I go, I don’t just get a piece of chocolate. I go to a fine chocolateria and I learn about it and I enjoy the very best chocolate in the very best chocolate country. When I’m in Belgium, I like a milkshakey, rich, monk-made beer. When I’m in Prague, I like a nice refreshing Pilsner. When I go to Tuscany, it’s a full-bodied glass of vino rosso . I don’t think I’ve ever made a pot of tea here in my house. It makes no sense to me. But when I’m in England, a spot of tea after a nice day of sightseeing feels just right. When I’m in Scotland, I have a little shot of whisky each night.

This is a very beverage-forward world philosophy.

It may seem like just silly superficial stuff, but it helps you realize that yes, I am in Sicily, and in Sicily they eat late, they eat long, and they love their cannoli.

The Delta variant of the coronavirus has threatened to cause more European travel restrictions. Should people be making plans for next summer now?

Europe wants to enjoy and allow tourism, but it’s a fluid situation. Each country must look out for their safety. Add to that the reality that Europe is proud, and when it’s shut out it reciprocates by responding in kind. As is often the case, Americans don’t understand why they have less privilege than they expect, when the answer is simply reciprocity.

Should people be making European-travel plans for next summer? No one knows how we’ll be, societally, by then, but I fully expect to travel in the spring—as long as the situation is no worse than it is today.

I know you say travel will still be travel after COVID . But will the crisis of the past two years affect how people view their place in the world?

I do think COVID will pass for travellers. I’d bet in a year it will be old news. But climate change will be a bigger and bigger issue for the rest of our travelling days. I don’t think that our society has the collective ethics or political will to take the necessary immediate steps to fight climate change yet. But, as individuals, we can all do the right thing. That’s why my company plans to spend a million dollars in 2022, and each year after, to mitigate the carbon our tour members’ flights add to the mix.

After this difficult time, good people will have a generous attitude toward the rest of our world. To what degree the phrase “good people” represents the U.S.A. is an open question. But I stand by my belief that if everyone travelled to faraway lands and did it thoughtfully, they would come home as better global citizens.

Are you concerned about getting back out there at all?

Well, I’m concerned about what is a responsible message to give, as a leader in travel. Do I want to say, “Get out there and travel, go for it”? No. Patience is not an American forte. It’s certainly not a Rick Steves forte. But patience has been my middle name for the last year and a half.

When we do go back to Europe, I hope we’re mindful. Why are we travelling? I don’t think we’re going to want to stand in line with a bunch of people who just want to see the “Mona Lisa.” There’s ninety per cent of Europe that has no crowds, and you do have a choice. If you want to have more peaceful, more thoughtful travels, there are plenty of ways to do that.

Do you remember how to pack?

It’s funny, because I went on my first plane ride just a couple of weeks ago, and dealing with airports and packing it was like, I haven’t done this for a year and a half. It was a little bit of an adjustment. But I don’t think I’m going to be rusty about embracing the joy of travel. Post- COVID , I want to be close to nature. I want to get away from the crowds. I want to take some moments and just sit on a rock and enjoy a commanding view and be thankful that I’m healthy and alive and able to get out and get to our world.

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Rick Steves Just Told Us His Top Travel Mistakes to Avoid — and His Best Piece of Travel Advice

Every year, Rick Steves’ Europe takes 30,000 people on small-group tours — and this is the one thing they're not allowed to bring.

Rick Steves never checks a bag when traveling — and he strongly encourages all of his fellow globetrotters to do the same.

“It’s more important than ever to travel light,” he said. “Two weeks, two months, man, woman, winter, summer, it doesn’t matter, you just need a carry-on bag.”

Steves is known for his popular European guidebooks, tour company Rick Steves’ Europe , and public television travel show . As a professional international traveler, Steves is an expert at avoiding common travel mistakes like lost luggage, overbooked restaurants, and crowded sights.

While a few travel problems are inevitable, Steves advocates for flexibility, which is at the core of his travel philosophy. In a recent interview with Travel + Leisure, Steves shared some of his best tips to help alleviate frequent travel issues and reduce trip anxiety.

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli/Courtesy of Rick Steves' Europe 

Pack Light and Skip Tight Connections

Besides the occasional need to pack his hiking poles, Steves is adamant that travelers should only bring along a carry-on bag . Every year, Rick Steves’ Europe takes 30,000 people on small-group tours, and all travelers are limited to just a carry-on — no checked luggage allowed. 

“If you don’t check a bag, you’re much less likely to get ensnared in all of the airport chaos in Europe,” Steves said.

Carry-on luggage is less likely to get stolen, lost, or broken, and Steves also loves that it helps with flexibility — you can easily switch flights without worrying about leaving your whole wardrobe behind. Plus, he said, if you are worried about limited space, packing cubes are a worthwhile investment to help organize and compress clothes in a smaller bag.

“You need to roll with the punches,” Steves said.

Steves is also a proponent of scheduling airline connections with plenty of time, especially for international trips. For instance, U.S. travelers visiting countries in the European Schengen Zone have to go through passport control when arriving in their first Schengen country. So, if your final destination is Greece, but your layover is in Germany, make sure the connection timing in Germany accounts for the possibility of long immigration lines.

Book Your Top Reservations, Then Go With the Flow

Steves believes 2023 is going to be a busy travel year, with sales of his guidebooks currently matching where they were at this time in 2019, previously the company’s best year ever. With the coronation of King Charles in London in May, and the Olympics in Paris next year, Steves wants travelers to understand that some crowds are going to be inevitable.

“People really need to respect that there are going to be a lot of crowds in Europe,” he said.

Travelers who don’t do any planning in advance often end up waiting in long lines, wasting valuable time queuing outside of a museum, rather than spending than extra time inside. Steves recommends using a guidebook, like his own, that has been researched after the worst years of the pandemic to account for any changes to reservation systems and updated hours.

“More than ever, people are going to the same famous places,” he said. “Museums want to moderate their mob scenes.”

A notable change these days, he said, is many sights are still requiring online bookings to help control large crowds, which they started doing during the pandemic and have kept up in order to mitigate the chaos of long lines outside. In updating his guidebooks, Steves said he is focused on making sure there is a sidebar for each chapter reviewing what visitors need to do in advance.

For instance, Steves said well-organized travelers visiting Amsterdam have just four things they need to book ahead of time: the Anne Frank House , the Van Gogh Museum , the Rijksmuseum , and one trendy restaurant for a nice dinner.

“The flip side of that coin is that everything else is fine. You don't need reservations for all the other stuff,” he said. “If a serendipitous opportunity presents itself, the answer has always got to be 'yes.”

Once you have the core set of reservations you need, the rest of your trip can easily fall into place, Steves said. Don’t worry about making a dinner reservation every night — instead, visit a street with local eateries and pick a delicious, non-touristy spot.

“We tend to be too figured out these days,” he said. “It takes away some of the joy of travel, which is letting things unfold in an unpredictable way.”

Courtesy of Rick Steves' Europe 

Avoid Overcrowded Spots

Steves said he's noticing that so many travelers now source recommendations from social media — and that has repercussions. The consequence, he said, is that when everyone goes to the same place, trying to get the same picture, it becomes overcrowded and hard to enjoy. 

“There might be a place that's just as good, maybe 90 percent as good, but with no crowds at all just down the street,” he said.

Instead of relying on Tripadvisor or Instagram, Steves said, try to embrace the local culture and you’ll have a less stressful experience.

“I don’t go crazy over what’s No. 1,” he said. “No. 1 is the company that is deemed best in the system. [Instead], we try to find these little mom and pops, these labors of love, these creative adventures — that’s what distinguishes my books and tours.”

Perhaps the most important piece of advice Steves shared is that often, travelers put a lot of pressure on themselves to check off the top museums, historic sites, restaurants, and shops from every “best of” list. But that pressure can lead to a lot of trip anxiety and the feeling of rushing around to go somewhere just because it’s famous.

His best advice? “Assume you will return,” he said. “Never try to do everything on one trip, because you can't.”

‘Everything was a thrill’: 50 years later, Rick Steves reflects on his favorite trip to Europe

DENVER — When Rick Steves returns to the U.S. from a trip overseas, he has a 24-hour window in which he is still able to interpret his notes. After that, his hand-written reminders and observations scrawled on the pages of his black Moleskin turn to indecipherable scribbles. So instead of catching up on movies (or, heaven forbid, sleep) during a recent 12-hour flight from Istanbul back home to Seattle, Steves used the time to type out his notes for what will become the ninth edition of his guidebook to Turkey’s largest city.

This method, shambolic though it may seem, is a winning one for Steves, whose best-selling guidebooks and beloved public television program have made him one of the foremost experts on European travel. He has been a fixture on public television since the early 1990s which has made Steves, as Sam Anderson put it in The New York Times Magazine, “one of the legendary PBS superdorks — right there in the pantheon with Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross and Big Bird.”

This year marked 50 years since Steves went to Europe for the first time sans parents. Before graduating high school, he took out an ad in his school paper in search of a travel partner. The ad promised the chance to "feel the fjords and caress the castles." Steves’ friend, Gene Openshaw, accepted the offer.

With their hulking backpacks they named Bert and Ernie (maybe Steves had a hunch about a future in public television), Steves and Openshaw purchased a 10-week Eurail pass and budgeted $3/day for their “ Europe Through The Gutter ” trip that took them through the Alps, Scandinavia, the Iberian Peninsula, the Soviet Bloc and more.

Openshaw, left, and Steves, right, pose for a photo before their trip.

Fifty years later, that trip with Openshaw — who has co-authored many of Steves’ guidebooks — remains the venerable travel writer’s favorite European adventure. Rocky Mountain PBS caught up with Steves over Zoom, who joined from his home in Washington state following a trip to Poland and Turkey. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Rocky Mountain PBS: Let's go back to the beginning. You’ve said that the 1973 trip remains your favorite European trip that you've taken. What do you remember most about that first trip?

Rick Steves: The fear and thrill of being over there with no safety net that you've had from parents all your life. Nobody knew where we were. I was just with my best buddy. If we screwed up, it was our own fault. We had to sort of learn on the fly. Back then, there wasn't a lot of good information. There was a big language barrier. Communication was expensive and we were poor. It was a struggle — just the economic struggle of it sort of carbonated the whole experience. Every few days we'd put our money on the bed and count it up and divide it by how many days we had left and see how we were doing.

But it was really a $3 a day trip. And we were just like street urchins. Once you get older and risk-averse and wealthier, you can't have that experience again. And it was just great.

Everything was new, obviously. Everything was a thrill — just going into a market, sleeping on a train, having a vodka with a Russian. This kind of stuff was just wild.

But I think back now and I just think how politically naive I was. I didn't even understand where I was. “Is this Palestinian or Israeli?” I didn't know. I just was meeting all sorts of interesting people and so, you know, you get more mature in your travels. But the fun of traveling back then was really great. And, you know, I've sort of kept that backpacker edge in my travels to this day, which I really value.

RMPBS: You mentioned political naiveté. When do you feel like you kind of overcame that?

RS: I remember I was in Iran, in Tehran, and I saw poor people camped out — really poor people camped out — leaning up against a big shiny bank building. I remember that was a moment and I just thought, “Wow, there's so much money here, and that person's got none of it.” I remember in Morocco going south of the Atlas Mountains to a village where I had more money in my pocket than everybody in that village combined. But the irony was, I was afraid to eat the food and I was afraid to drink the water because I'd get sick on it.

So I had all the money, but I couldn't eat the food and the liquid that they were enjoying. And I remember I bought a Fanta. It was hot because there was no refrigeration. It was a hot bottle of Fanta. And I opened it and the glass broke off — not the bottle cap — but the glass broke off.

And I had to decide. I was really thirsty. I couldn't drink the water or I'd get diarrhea. I looked at that broken bottle top with all that Fanta in there, and I had to decide: am I going to drink that at the risk of drinking glass, or am I going to go thirsty? And I was so poor and out of my element and I ended up clenching my teeth and drinking it. And the kids around me were so poor that there were flies caked on their faces, and their eyes didn't even flinch.

You know, it was that total immersion thing. And I remember having a piece of bread and balancing it on the bottle cap of my Fanta so that it didn't touch the table. I mean, it was that kind of scary travel! Beds were big yellow sponges. That was the mattress and they were [shaped] like the hull of a boat. And my friend and I, we would fall together in the middle of a hot, sweaty night and just sleep in this room with literally a dirt floor that was, you know, it sounds horrible today, but, man, that was good travel.

RMPBS: Would you recommend that kind of travel to people?

RS: Well for a while, I actually inflicted it on people. People would take my first tours and I would put them in bad hotels just so they would experience a bad night’s accommodations so that they'd be more thankful for what they had when they got home. I really had this agenda to let Americans know, “Hey, we don't have anything to complain about.”

And it was a stupid kind of tour-guiding. But the sentiment was good, for us to get out of our comfort zone so we could appreciate what we have and be more thankful and also recognize there's a lot of suffering and a lot of need outside of our comfort area. Now, I’ve graduated to do the same kind of mission as far as experiential travel and exposing people and having people think about what they're experiencing without making them go into a dangerous, horrible rat house for a hotel. So we always have a refuge.

But back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, my mission was to expose Americans to reality. And to this day, I employ 100 people and we take 30,000 people on our tours every year. We have 1,200 tours this year. And our guidebooks — we've got more than 50 guidebooks that are the bestselling guidebooks in every destination they cover — and our mission remains [the same]. We like to joke that our mission is to inspire Americans to venture beyond Orlando. You know, Orlando is fine. Go there three or four times. But, you know, someday you could actually branch out and go to Portugal. You'll probably spend less and enjoy it more.

Rick Steves tallied the cost of his 1973 trip to Europe in a notebook.

RMPBS: You've talked a lot about second cities and the benefit of going to those as opposed to places like Paris or Barcelona. What are some second cities that you've been to recently that have surprised you in good ways?

RS: Well, Porto. I mean, they're kind of obvious. It's like Seattle and Tacoma — everybody goes to Seattle. What about Tacoma? Everybody goes to Paris. It's a great city, but what about Lyon? Everybody goes to Edinburgh. Great city, but what about Glasgow? They say a funeral in Glasgow is more fun than a wedding in Edinburgh.

These are the obvious examples. And they ring true to me right now. It's just that crowds are a bigger issue than ever before. The big issues now are crowds and weather. And people rely too much on their apps and there's too much screen time and all this Instagram crowdsourcing.

So what we have to realize is that a smart traveler takes seriously the problem of crowds. Crowds are worse now because everybody's going to the same places because we have this Instagram mentality where we all want to do the same thing and show it off on our social media site. So, respect for the crowd problems. What comes with crowd problems is a need to book things in advance.

That's a different thing now from before. I never would have booked anything in advance in the old days. Now, if you don't book in advance for a lot of great sites, you're not going to get anywhere. You're not going to get in the door.

I used to pride myself in total footloose and fancy-free travel. I didn't have any reservations for hotels or anything. Now, I still have the same free spirit, but I would be ill advised not to have things nailed down in advance. So that's important.  

RMPBS: What are some other things that have changed since you began your travels?

RS: The weather's a big deal. You just have to take serious climate change. It's screwing people up. This summer I've done a lot of traveling and I've been in Morocco, I've been in Spain, I've been in Portugal. But I was there in April, and it was really good. I've been to Scandinavia and I've been in Iceland and Poland, and I was there in the dead of summer and it was really good. And I've been in Istanbul — I was just there last week, you know, late September — and it was really good.

Meanwhile, other people's trips were just drenched in sweat and boiling because they thought they could skate through and miss a heat wave. These heat waves are brutal in Europe. So we’ve got to take weather as a concern.

[ Related: U.S., European heat waves 'virtually impossible' without climate change, study finds ]

Of course, travel is a contributor to climate change. I believe we need to mitigate the carbon we create in a creative way, in an honest way. I spend $1,000,000 a year in my company mitigating the carbon produced by people flying to Europe for our tours . We give it to 10 or so different organizations that fight climate change through on-the-ground work in the developing world and government advocacy in the U.S. And we honestly mitigate — we create bad, but we create good and it zeros out. It’s not heroic. It's just baseline ethical. But we also have to have a stewardship obligation — if we're going to spend the carbon and the time and the money to travel — to do it in a way that is transformational so that we come home and become better world citizens. That to me is a beautiful thing.

And I don't want to be flight-shamed out of my travels because if nobody travels, this world is going to be a more dangerous place. But if we do travel, we should travel in a way that makes the world a better place. And that's not going to some elite golf course in the middle of a desert and flaunting your wealth. That's getting out there and getting to know people and realizing [Americans] are not the norm and there's a lot of things we can learn from and make the world a better place.

Rick Steves poses for a photo the day after his high school graduation in 1973. (Photo: Rick Steves' Europe)

RMPBS: How has social media changed international travel?

RS: I mentioned this thing about crowdsourced information. That's a new plague. When I started traveling, there was not enough information. People needed my books. Now there's too much information, and what I do is curate information as much as produce it.

There's too many superlatives, there's too many first-timers that are writing things up like they're experts and there's too many people that just follow them like they're experts. It's the whole TripAdvisor thing. People are doing wacky things because it's number one on TripAdvisor. “Everybody else is doing it. It must be right, so I'm going to do it.” And if you know how to travel, you look at that and you kind of laugh. You kind of just think those sorry souls, you know, they just don't have good information. That's going to be the challenge for our whole society going forward with AI and everything with crowdsourced information: what is the information that you're taking in?

There's a challenge for people to be in the moment. When we were filming in Venice, it was hard to find anybody on a gondola being romantic. They were ignoring their partners and taking pictures. So that's a sad thing.

RMPBS: Has the perception of international travel changed since you started doing this professionally?

RS: Fifty years ago, people said “bon voyage.” Now they say, “have a safe trip.” It's a pretty fundamental difference. It really speaks volumes. Now, people say “Are you sure you want to go over there? It's dangerous.” That's been parallel with the evolution of our news media from Walter Cronkite to sensational political agenda news. Because if it bleeds, it leads. You know, if you want to make money, you’ve got to have clickbait. You’ve got to have more people watching. And if you don't have a very sophisticated viewing audience, everybody becomes afraid because everything's amped up.

When you travel, you realize it's not that big of a deal. Every time I do an event, people ask me these questions and I just kind of go, “Really? You're worried about that?” Go there and see. Russia is not in Poland! It's safe to go to Poland. You know, a train just crashed in the Alps. That doesn't mean you can't go to the Alps. Somebody was just shot at a mall. It doesn't mean you can't go to malls. It's a big world. There's 20 million people in Istanbul. There could be a bomb every day and it would still be a safe place to go. So for me, the irony is the less we travel, the more we should be afraid.

And if we're really afraid, we need to get out there and get to know our neighbors. That is critical. I was just in Oslo and there's a bench in Oslo in front of the Nobel Peace Center there. The bench is shaped like a big semicircle. Two people cannot sit on that bench without coming together. And then there's a Nelson Mandela quote in front of the bench that says, “The best weapon is to talk to each other.” And the whole idea is we got to talk to each other when we travel, to talk to each other. If we're afraid, we build walls. If we're smart, if we care about stability, if we care about our children's reality, if we care about peace, we need to build bridges.

So I'm more enthusiastic than ever about my work as a travel teacher. And just from a practical point of view, it's better now than ever. So it's a great time to be traveling and it's an important time to be traveling.

Steves sent postcards back home to Washington during his 1973 trip to Europe. Above, you can read postcards sent from Salzburg, Austria (left) and Rome (right). 

RMPBS: Do you think that practicality — the lack of language barriers, the ease of currency exchange — has taken anything away from the travel experience?

RS: Yeah, it's taken away the adventure. You know, I travel risk free. I can accomplish a lot more. I've got it lined up and the ducks are all in a row. I set off on a six-week trip and I know what I'm going to do every morning and every afternoon. I've got guides lined up. I've got my admissions figured out. That's good. But it also takes away some of the serendipity.

So I think it's more important than ever when serendipity knocks to say, “Yes.” If you have an opportunity, grab it. If it's a mistake, that's okay. But it's probably going to spice up your trip. We can get it too locked down. Some things are just bad for my soul. Sometimes when I'm doing my work with my TV crew, the local tourist board will put us up in a fancy hotel. I don't enjoy it. You know, probably one of the most expensive hotels in the city, but it just builds a wall between me and what I traveled so far to see. I'd rather be close to the ground. I'd rather be able to make mistakes and rather have to figure out how to use the transit, you know?

RMPBS: You keep the first-time travelers in mind when creating your guidebooks and your television program. How do you kind of tap into that perspective as someone who has half a century's worth of European travel under your belt?

RS: That's a forte of mine, I got to say, because I am tuned into how overwhelming it must be to be a first-timer here that doesn't speak the language. And I'm working on this [ Steves holds up a draft of an Istanbul travel guide ] and I know how overwhelming that city is. And I'm just so excited about this new map I'm making, which is a very easy, schematic map of the public transit. But I also know that people can't say a single word of these places. Nobody knows these words, even if they had all the words there with pronunciations. People can't remember those words. It's got to be done in a way that an American traveler or non-Turkish traveler can get the brain around.

So I stand on a square and even though I used to know it really well, I forget over the years. So I enjoy being befuddled and I just love that. So embrace the joy of being confused and overwhelmed when I'm in a new city because a day later I feel very comfortable at it.

Kyle Cooke is the digital media manager at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at [email protected] .

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Travel | Rick Steves’ Europe: Helsinki and Tallinn:…

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Travel | rick steves’ europe: helsinki and tallinn: pearls of the baltic.

Helsinki and Tallinn are two great capitals in Northern Europe. Just 50 miles and a two-hour ferry ride apart, these two cities – facing each other across the Baltic Sea from their respective countries of Finland and Estonia – are not only neighbors, but soul sisters.

Finns and Estonians share a similar history – first Swedish domination, then Russian, then independence after World War I. But while Finland held on to its freedom through the Cold War, Estonia was gobbled up by the expanding Soviet Empire and spent the decades after World War II under communism, regaining its freedom in 1991.

Today both are enjoying good times as members of the European Union and share a common currency, the euro (Finland was one of the first countries to adopt the euro, in 1999). And both countries are members of NATO, with Finland joining the military alliance in 2023 for protection against a newly belligerent Russia.

In spite of its Swedish roots, old Helsinki feels Russian. When the Russians took over Finland in 1809, they moved the capital to Helsinki and hired German architect Carl Ludvig Engel to model the city after their capital, St. Petersburg. This resulted in fine Neoclassical squares and stone buildings with white trim and columns. Because filming in Russia was not possible during the Cold War, movies like Gorky Park and Dr. Zhivago were actually filmed in Helsinki .

Helsinki’s grand boulevard, the Esplanade, provides wide and inviting sidewalks for shoppers and a people-friendly park up the middle. At the top of the Esplanade is Market Square, Helsinki’s delightful harborfront plaza. The colorful outdoor market is worth a stop for perhaps the quickest, cheapest lunch in town. The salmon grills are a favorite. Everyone from the Finnish president to tourists stop by for a dash of local flavor.

At the shore is a wooden deck with washing tables built out over the water. The city provides this for locals to clean their carpets. A good Saturday chore in summer is to bring the family carpet down to the harborfront, scrub it with seawater, and let it air-dry in the Baltic breeze.

A short ferry ride takes you across the harbor to Helsinki’s most important sight: Suomenlinna Fortress. It was built by the Swedes with French financial support in the mid-1700s to counter Russia’s rise to power. Think of it as European superpower chess. The Russians made St. Petersburg their “eye on the West.” The French countered by moving a Swedish castle to Helsinki, stopping the Russian offensive – for the time being. These days the sleepy fortress serves as a popular park with scenic strolling paths.

From Helsinki’s harbor, ferries zip across the Baltic to Tallinn. The trip is so easy that Finns routinely visit Tallinn to eat, drink, and shop more cheaply than at home. On summer weekends, the city virtually becomes a Finnish nightclub.

Tallinn once consisted of two feuding medieval towns. Toompea – the upper town on a hill – was the seat of government ruling Estonia. The lower town was an independent city, a Hanseatic trading center filled with German, Danish, and Swedish merchants who hired Estonians to do their menial labor.

At the center of the lower town is Town Hall Square, a marketplace through the centuries. The 15th-century town hall dominating the square is now a museum with city history exhibits; climbing its tower earns a commanding view.

Like many tourist zones, Tallinn’s is a commercial gauntlet, with medieval theme restaurants and enthusiastic hawkers of ye olde taste treats. But just a couple of blocks away is, for me, the real attraction of Tallinn, where still-ramshackle courtyards host inviting cafés and bistros serve organic cuisine in a chic patina of old-world-meets-new.

Climbing the stairs from the lower old town into Toompea, you’ll notice that the architecture tells a story. For instance, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was built by Russians in 1900. Facing the parliament building, it was clearly designed to flex Russian cultural muscles during a period of Estonian national revival. It’s a beautiful building, but most Estonians don’t like it.

Near the cathedral, Tallinn’s Museum of Occupations and Freedom tells the history of Estonia under Soviet, then Nazi, and once again Soviet occupation. Artfully arranged suitcases are a reminder of people who fled the country, leaving everything behind. Prison doors evoke the countless lives lost in detention and deportation. Displays show how the Soviets used surveillance to kept Estonians in line and focus on the inhumane living conditions in occupied society, stories of Estonians living in exile, and ultimately independence and freedom.

After suffering through a challenging 20th century, Tallinn has joined Helsinki as a vibrant and welcoming destination in the 21st. While both cities have their own story to tell, they also share a common heritage – and spirit of resilience.

(Rick Steves ( www.ricksteves.com ) writes European guidebooks, hosts travel shows on public TV and radio, and organizes European tours. This column revisits some of Rick’s favorite places over the past two decades. You can email Rick at [email protected] and follow his blog on Facebook.)

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Rick Steves Says To Always Do These Things Before Traveling

Packing your suitcase, creating an itinerary, tidying the house — travelers are all too familiar with the basics of pre-trip preparation. Still, you can easily neglect those not-so-obvious tasks due to a lack of time or memory. Preparing for a trip is often an intricate process that requires careful and timely planning. Not sure where to start? Thankfully, we have travel expert Rick Steves in our corner.

As a travel show host, founder of "Rick Steves' Europe," and seasoned traveler, Steves brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the industry. On numerous occasions, he's shared extensive tips about the ins and outs of travel preparation. Steves is particularly well-versed in international travel, as he told Forbes , "Except for two years of pandemic, I've spent 100 days a year exploring Europe every year since the mid 1970s." Planning for international travel is a different beast, and Steves has highlighted the non-negotiables of preparing for a trip abroad, too. Without further ado, let's unpack Steves' checklist essentials.

Handle health-related matters and medical needs

Unsurprisingly, according to  Rick Steves' website , getting health-related matters squared away is one of his must-do pre-travel tips . Whether a routine check-up or dental procedure, it's crucial to fit in necessary medical appointments before traveling. Additionally, make sure you have enough of your prescription medications. It's a good idea to bring the actual prescription on your trip, too.

Steves shared with The Denver Post  that international travelers should ask their health insurance provider about their coverage plan. He also advised considering  travel insurance . "This can minimize the financial risks of a vacation," he explained. Weigh the pros and cons of insurance for your particular set of circumstances. "Your potential loss varies, depending on factors such as your health, how much of your trip is prepaid, the refundability of your air ticket, and what coverage you already have (through your medical, homeowners', or renters' insurance, and/or credit card)," Steves added. The host highlighted trip cancellation and interruption insurance as his top picks.

Verify travel documents and payment cards

Rick Steves has emphasized the importance of verifying travel documents on his website. Are you renting a car on vacation? Renew your driver's license if necessary. You should also renew passports set to expire within six months of your return date. Per The Denver Post, Steves said, "You may be denied entry into certain countries if your passport will expire within three to six months of your ticketed date of return." The renewal process can take up to eight weeks, so plan accordingly. In addition, Steves advises travelers to have backup copies of travel documents as a security net. Consider bringing one passport copy and leaving one copy behind with someone trusted and reliable.

Traveling abroad comes with its own agenda, especially regarding those wallet essentials. If you're headed to another country, Steves suggests smoothing out details with your debit and credit card companies. "This will ensure that they don't decline foreign transactions. While you have them on the line, confirm your debit card's daily withdrawal limit, request an increase if you want, and ask about fees for international transactions," Steves told The Denver Post.

Make reservations to avoid long lines

While throngs of tourists can sometimes be unavoidable, pre-planning certain activities should improve sightseeing experiences. Rick Steves shared with  Travel + Leisure that he is a big proponent of booking reservations for popular sights, as this can significantly cut down wait times for travelers . If you're going to Amsterdam, for example, make reservations for the  Anne Frank House and the  Van Gogh Museum well in advance, said Steves. As he suggests on his website , a museum pass could be economical. Do you plan to visit the Paris Museum a few times? A pass should come in handy for beating lines and staying on budget.

Numerous hot spots now provide timed reservations, allowing visitors to skip standard lines. Steves told Business Insider , "Take advantage of this fast and easy alternative to standing in needless lines." Further minimize waiting by following "any good up-to-date guidebook," he added. These manuals include shifts in reservation systems and current visiting hours, making them useful for many reasons. Steves wrote on his website about trips in Europe, "Guidebooks are $20 tools for $3,000 experiences. Saving money by not buying one is penny-wise and pound-foolish."

Complete your travel tech checklist

When traveling with technology, it's best to prepare for the worst. On his website, Rick Steves encourages travelers to create a detailed list of valuable electronic devices they intend to pack. Along with photos of these devices, record serial numbers, models, and makes. In the unfortunate case of theft, this information will be crucial when filing an insurance claim or communicating with authorities.

There are several other technology-centered travel tasks to check off your to-do list. What's your move regarding Wi-Fi? Steves told The Denver Post, "If you plan to use your U.S. mobile phone in Europe, consider signing up for an international calling, text, and/or data plan, and confirm voice- and data-roaming fees." With or without service, you'll want to arrive prepared. Before your trip, download essential tools and apps like maps, transit schedules, and translators. Of course, don't forget to download your go-to entertainment programs, too.

Do some creative exploring beforehand

Beyond logistical recommendations about travel preparation, Rick Steves believes in exploring creatively to enhance your trip. When it comes to viewing artistic and cultural sights, Steves is all for getting a headstart. He recommends doing relevant research beforehand to  get the most out of museum visits . He told The Seattle Times , "I can't get you into the Prado Museum cheaper than anybody else, but if you know a little bit about art history when you go to the Prado, it's going to be much more rewarding."

As far as booking your accommodations, Steves has some sound advice. In an interview with Business Insider, the travel host relayed the value of choosing local lodging instead of big-name hotels. Not only will a unique locale give your trip an authentic feel, but it could also keep your budget in check. Steves told Forbes, "Stay in cozy local-style mom & pop accommodations (family-run guest houses, B&Bs, small simple hotels)." That extra forethought could significantly elevate your trip!

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• I see that RS in ...

I see that RS in his latest newsletter is rightly promoting energy conscious travel.

So, Rick, maybe it's time for Best of Europe Energy Conscious? (or maybe we generate some ideas that individuals can use)

Limit tours to the shoulder seasons, when energy consumption for heating and cooling is at its lowest.

Don’t do the “Best of Europe” … way too much energy used in travel, restrict the tours to tight regions.

Publish the carbon footprint per traveler.

RS should include carbon offsets in the tour cost so the tour is carbon neutral.

Begin and end in Portugal or London to reduce the carbon footprint of the flight over.

Avoid cities and countries that do not have active energy reduction mandates.

Avoid cities and countries that do not have energy equity mandates.

Avoid countries where the majority of the energy is not derived from other than Carbon sources.

Make 5kg or less of luggage mandatory (RS backpacks made from recycled ocean plastic).

Trains instead of busses, or at least electric busses.

Group walks from the train station to the hotel.

Maybe a portion of the tour on a riverboat.

Maybe a portion of the tour on bikes; a bike ride from Vienna to Budapest could be done in a couple of days with a stop for the night in Gyor.

No more bus tours in the cities, use public transport or group walks.

Ditch the old energy wasting hotels for modern energy efficient hotels or tents.

Only go to museums and other attractions that have low energy consumption (Near Zero) certificates.

Stop and eat only at places with locally sourced ingredients.

No more hotels with breakfast buffets.

Take 25% of every dollar charged and donate it to a program that promotes energy efficiency in the country visited.

Make each member of the group personally plant a tree.

Bathe only in natural hot springs (always room for a little levity).

Re-write your guide books with attention to energy consciousness and social equity.

"Social Equity" that's another whole post?

Problems can often be solved by throwing it all on the table and then picking out the best, most logical, and most practical solutions.

MORE IDEAS?

Mister E, granted some of what you wrote is tongue-in-cheek, but much of it is worth considering. We should have a conversation about it. Well done.

joe32f, why? There are some legitimate points made about mitigating our carbon footprint. We have to walk the talk.

And if a thread or post offends someone, how about just skipping it? No need to go tell on someone.

BMWBGV: maybe a little tounge in cheek, maybe not so much. Some great ideas have come out of just tossing it all out and seeing what sticks to the wall. Often it leads to unthought of ideas. Is there a good BOE tour that starts in London and ends in Lisbon?

He tried that once. It did not go well.

"Back when I was almost always younger than anyone on my tour, I made my groups sleep in Munich’s huge hippie circus tent. With simple mattresses on a vast wooden floor and 400 roommates, it was like a cross between Woodstock and a slumber party. One night I was stirred out of my sleep by a woman sitting up and sobbing. With the sound of backpackers rutting in the distance, she whispered, apologetically, “Rick, I’m not taking this so very well.” I gave her some valium — which was about all I had in my “first aid kit” — and she got through the night." 😆

https://blog.ricksteves.com/blog/my-redemption-story-inflicting-the-fear-of-a-little-homelessness-on-a-paying-customer/

This has been the case on every tour I've been on. They make a point of instructing you how to use the buses/trams/metro and yes, the group has walked to all sights in cities. And thats why they choose and recommend hotels based on proximity to the sights to be visited and to public transportation. So that ones covered.

No more bus tours in the cities, use public transport or group walks. Trains instead of busses, or at least electric busses.

I could go for these. Two of the tours we've taken have hired buses for city tours, and I would definitely have preferred walking tours (which all tours also do, to be fair.)

While I imagine guides are blenching at the thought of herding 28 people on a train through multiple countries, electric buses would be a nice compromise.

Hmmm, this would be challenging. I had my backpack that light on the trip from which we just returned, but my "personal item" added another 2 kg. A goal for next time, perhaps.

I'm curious as to how social equity fits in here. Perhaps a discount or free travel for certain underprivileged groups?

There are existing international tour companies that one could benefit from either taking, or reviewing their business plan. The first big difference is they are small group tours.....no more than 15 people in size. That makes public transit, and some social equity possible. GAdventures and Intrepid have worked this way since inception. Over time they now offer more comfortable tours with dedicated mini vans, but one can take their Classic trips and still be comfortable. They 'do' Europe, but as I never consider a tour for Europe, I don't know how well they pull off the energy consciousness. I took an Intrepid India trip in November that practiced a number of these suggestions.

Nick, I assume you are asking me. No, I would not agree as carbon is carbon no matter where it is mined. The other inference in your question is a good one for another thread (start one and I will participate), but off topic here and if pursued will destroy this thread.

Yes to what Nick said, but I wouldn't call that "energy-conscious travel". I would call that "evil-conscious travel". Tour members could be issued and required to wear t-shirts with social equity phrases. And I hate to break it to everyone, we must fly commercial rather than traveling on our private jets.

In reality this is all feel good stuff. In reality there are too many people in the whole world using too much stuff. The train is hurtling down the tracks. Everything now is compounded. So I don’t use my fireplace. Less carbon, then the train in Ohio derails and so much goes up in smoke that my effort is pitiful in comparison. You get the idea. Only takes one Exxon Valdez or rig blowup to spoil everything once again, and then some. You can go the route of trying the suggestions listed above if you want. But, I will probably still eat the breakfast buffet and carbonize the world in some questionable way even with that unknown impact measure. Energy conscious travel is an oxymoron. Best to not travel at all and stay home with the lights off and eat less.

I live in a city with public transport and do not even own a car. Once every year or so I fly to Europe or Asia and spend a week in a foreign city, where I use public transportation and walk.

I recycle, I compost, I unplug appliances when not in use. I do my best to avoid single-use paper and plastics.

I have no qualms about the impact of my travel on the environment.

There is no social equity unless all can travel regardless of economic or other status.

In hindsight, I believe we have had similar threads here in the past...but not about tour companies...rather the ethics of traveling at all. As per the poster above, that means being conscious of your footprint everyday. There are some places I have elected not to travel too as they don't need my strain in their environment, and I like to think my day to day efforts outweigh my flights and travel expenditures. Ferreting out and switching ti the companies that already do this may be the message other tour companies need to hear. Loss of clients and the all mighty dollar.

I got really bored so I did a little math.

Flight from Kansas into London and then out of Lisbon 16 days later. 5000 km trip from London to Paris through Switzerland to Milan, Rome, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Madrid, Seville and Lisbon.

“NET ZERO” trip 16 nights during shoulder seasons (when there is less heating and cooling load) using trains and hotels that are 50% more energy efficient than the average results in a carbon footprint between 2.0 and 2.5 metric tons. Carbon footprint off set would be about $60 per person.

Flying into Amsterdam and out of Rome in the heat of the summer or dead of winter and eliminating most of the time in France (where almost 95% of the energy is renewable or nuclear), but keeping the same 5000km trip distance over 16 nights, but by conventional bus; and using conventional RS hotels the carbon footprint would probably be closer to 4 metric tons.

Let’s say 2.0 metric tons savings per person x 24 in the tour = 48 metric tons (just a little less than the weight of an Abrams Battle Tank) not pumped into the environment compared to a “typical” tour.

Okay, its crude but it illustrates a point.

I recently attended Rick's talk at the L.A. Travel Show about this very topic and RSE is already doing some of the things discussed here. For example, they have priced into the tours a $30 donation for every tour participant to an organization working to offset our carbon footprints. He spoke from notes because he said it was the first time he was speaking publicly about their efforts, and the COO was also there to describe in detail some of the projects worldwide that the company supports. So, it's clear they feel an ethical obligation. Obviously he also has a successful business model to maintain as well. I think we'll be hearing more in the near future.

I've seen the video and read some of his newsletters, and the work is commendable and deserves praise. Taking earnings from conventional practices and patching the results of decades of abuse is a necessity that we can mitigate in the future by changing current practices. English: Change the tour structure philosophy (and every other life practice), and someday we won't have to contribute to charities that are assisting villages subcoming to rising sea levels.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.

The Unexpected Effect Travel Can Have On Your Spirituality, According To Rick Steves

T ravel can impact people in many different ways; some return inspired to adopt a new diet, perhaps Mediterranean or Okinawan, while others might consider a new routine, like taking compulsory siestas. However, the profound influence of travel can extend far beyond exploring exotic cuisines or different ways of living. According to Rick Steves , travel can have an unexpected effect on your spirituality.

First and foremost, it's crucial to clarify one concept: religion and spirituality are different. Religion is external, involving a pre-determined set of organized beliefs and practices, whereas spirituality is internal, focusing on an individual sense of purpose and solace. That doesn't mean you have to choose between one or the other — both are important and can work hand in hand. A 2018 study indicates that if someone is religious but not spiritual, their mental health can potentially suffer.

Spirituality can help people increase their compassion for themselves and others — and for Rick Steves, traveling is inherently spiritual. In a 2010 interview with Christian Century , he reinforced this idea: "People have a lot of fear. The flip side of fear is understanding. When you travel to new places, you understand more, so you are fearless. And then you can love people, as a Christian should." This realization is essential for travelers, especially in industrialized countries like America. It can be easy to slip into an economic or cultural prejudice over countries that aren't represented in a certain "attractive" way.

Read more: The 40 Most Mysterious Places In The Whole Entire World

How Do You Pursue Spiritual Experiences When Traveling?

How often have you visited a new place with preconceived notions about the people, only to discover that your initial ideas were far from the reality of what this place and its culture are all about? As a Christian, Rick Steves is embarrassed by this idea of ethnocentrism and wants to show American travelers that there are different, open-minded, spiritual ways to experience the world.

How would he do it? Rick Steves expresses that he would "put them in a lousy hotel, make them talk to people who don't speak their language, give them some history to read and hope they can recognize that people have dreams other than [the American dream]" (via Christian Century). This is one of many ways to overcome any prejudice and begin interpreting your religion and spirituality from other people's perspectives, even if their religion differs from yours.

Rick Steves emphasizes avoiding merely being a cog in the tourist machine. Instead, he advocates spending time with locals and seeking experiences that foster relationships with the people around you. While booking a local cooking class is a good start, it merely scratches the surface. Try opting for more immersive options like staying in a hands-on  farm stay , volunteering for a cause you care about, or going on a hiking trek to meet people in remote villages with a local guide. "You will come home changed; that is being a traveler," asserts Rick Steves. 

Spiritual Destinations Around The World

It may seem daunting to access the travel experience that Rick Steves describes, but it's more attainable than one might assume. The initial, non-negotiable step towards gaining a profound understanding of people around the world is to travel with an open mind and heart. The next step is to select a destination renowned for its spiritual presence. Jerusalem is one of the most famous spiritual destinations, hosting three of the world's major religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — within its city limits. Every year, it welcomes millions of pilgrims.

For those curious about going further east, Kyoto, Japan, is known for its Zen Buddhist gardens and traditional tea ceremonies. This mindful spirit is evident even in everyday interactions with locals, such as when a vendor might present you with an origami bird as a gesture of good luck. At the banks of the Ganges River lies Varanasi, one of India's oldest and holiest cities in Hinduism, with non-stop cremations and chanting happening at its ghats.

Rick Steves also highly recommends Assisi, a bucket list city in Italy . This picturesque town is home to the stunning Basilica of Saint Francis and offers a taste of the simple yet profound staples of Umbrian cuisine — bread, cheese, and wine — that once sustained Saint Francis of Assisi himself. But remember, no matter how many houses of worship you visit, spirituality lives not outside but inside you. Travel the world, conquer your fears, learn from others, and love thy neighbor.

Read the original article on Explore

RICK STEVES' EUROPE: Egypt’s Cairo

Saturday, April 13, 2024 at 4 p.m. on KPBS TV / Steam now with the PBS App / YouTube

Teeming Cairo, straddling the Nile, is the capital of Egypt and one of the leading cities of the Muslim world. With 20 million people, greater Cairo pulses with energy. On this episode , we explore the back streets on a tuk-tuk, drop in on a mosque, haggle with a gauntlet of eager merchants, bake some pita bread, marvel at King Tut’s gold, greet the ancient Sphinx, and climb into the center of the greatest pyramid.

Watch On Your Schedule: Episodes of RICK STEVES' EUROPE are available to stream with the PBS App . Watch the best of PBS anytime, anywhere on the free PBS app. Stream your favorite PBS shows on-demand and livestream shows from your local station, all from your favorite device.