What Does It Take to Be a Rick Steves Tour Guide?

After sharing the fun of our annual guides’ summit, we wanted to answer the most common question we hear: “What does it take to be a Rick Steves tour guide?”

To be honest, we don’t have a set procedure. We have about 130 lead tour guides. Most are Europeans, but plenty are Americans. Many are already professional guides working with (or fleeing) other tour companies. A few are friends of our company who have been with us since they were kids, packing boxes in our mailroom. These days, our guides are mostly established professionals who come to us with impressive experience along with an enthusiasm for guiding “the Rick Steves way.”

For an insight into the way our guides are managed, here’s an interview with Steve Smith. One of our very first guides (#4, to be specific), Steve led our entire tour-guiding team until his retirement in 2018.

How did Steve start? Back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed “pack man” for the phenomenal way he sold our suitcases and backpacks. He’s our in-house Francophile, who single-handedly established our France program (co-authoring my France, Paris, and Provence guidebooks, and turning this sandwich-munching Viking into a person with a love of France). And all along, I count him as one of my best friends. With the short interview below, I’d like you to meet Steve Smith.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

There’s no one recipe for how to become a Rick Steves guide. But our current crop of guides has set the bar extremely high. All of our guides have several things in common: They are very well-traveled, they love Europe, and they’re excellent teachers who can convey their passion and in-depth knowledge of Europe, its history, and its culture to a group. Most of them spend extended periods of time in Europe, studying or working; most currently live in the country where they guide, speak the local language, and have a lifestyle that allows them to be on the road for up to three months each year. And every single one of them excels at organizing, leading and teaching people .

Comments

5 Replies to “What Does It Take to Be a Rick Steves Tour Guide?”

  1. One of the qualifications must be sound judgment. Clients put their trust in these folks. So guides must exercise great insight when interacting with them. My own experience indicates that tour group members are diverse: in age; background; beliefs and morals. So while some are very tolerant of things like recreational drug use, others are repelled by it. In my own case, I was a bit put off by Rick Steves’ display of multiple “bowls of munchies” (meaning marijuana) at his Super Bowl party featured briefly on the NBC Today tv show. Rick is, after all, “leader of the guides” and his example might mislead his guides and distort their judgment. Doing as I say, not as I do, is tricky for a leader to communicate.

  2. I will be very anxious to see how our friends first tour with Europe through the back door actually is. I am hoping this is a good spring board for them to love travel through Europe like we do. The guides seem to be very warm and intelligent people.

  3. You early need to be careful about serving this type of “munchies” to guests. If they leave your house and drive impaired, get in an accident and someone is injured, you could be held liable. You could end up losing , lose considerable assets and wind up living in a houseboat on the Amstel River in Amsterdam having to frequent local coffee shops for your recreational habit.

  4. This is great insight. I have been on two Rick Steves tours, and I both admired and envied the guides on each (Ben in Rome, Rolinka in Paris). The “Rick Steves way” is something really special. Additionally, Rick, I have organized three of my own European adventures. They all went off without a hitch, incidentially. Where I’m going with this is, I’m available.

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