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Month: October 2016

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Three Hardworking Guides: Rick, Trish, and Ben

For me, a big part of the joy in leading this three-week tour has been collaborating with two fine guides: Trish Feaster and Ben Cameron. We tag-teamed the tour and learned from each other all along the way. We have well over 100 guides at Rick Steves Europe Tours — both Americans and Europeans. I encourage them to play to their strengths, while studying in areas where they may be weak. Ben and Trish beautifully covered for me when I was weak, and that gave me a great chance to learn.

Trish with tour members

Trish takes the mic and engages our group as we cruise down the highway.

 

Ben in subway with group

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

On a Rick Steves tour, you learn to use the public transportation. Here in Rome, tour guide Ben coaches the group as we master the Roman underground.

 

Ben with group in Alps

Hiking through the Alps with a good guide (like Ben Cameron), you know where the farm-fresh yogurt and tastiest cheese is, you relax knowing you’re on the right trail, and you know just which mountain vistas are not to be missed.

 

Rick Steves and Ben with group in Rome

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

Here in Rome, Ben and I make sure all 28 of us get on the packed bus #280 as we head from St. Peter’s Square to dinner in Trastevere. One of the exhilarating challenges of being a guide (at least, a Rick Steves guide) is giving our tour members that “public transit experience”…and not losing anyone. We all made it, and the dinner was one of the best of the tour.

 

Ben Cameron, Trish Feaster, and Rick Steves

Thanks, Trish and Ben, for the great trip (and for carrying all that beer up to the top of that ruined castle to surprise our group)!

(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.)

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A Great Bus Driver Enhances a Tour

If you’ve ever been on a bus tour, you know what an important part of the mix your driver is. And if you’ve ever been a tour guide, you know that the driver can be your best friend…or a real obstacle to a smooth tour. We love our bus drivers and consider them part of our traveling family. (While we can’t promise this, several of our drivers have actually fallen in love with and married our tour members.)

Rick Steves with Richard bus driver

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

Bus driver Richard plays tour guide, and lets me imagine driving his wonderful coach.

 

Richard and tour member

Each year we give our tour members a patch as a memento of their tour. About 40 percent of the more than 20,000 travelers who joined us this year were return travelers. Here, Mike — a proud six-time tour alum — shows off the six patches he’s collected over his many years of touring with us.

 

Rick Steves tour group

Travelers on our tours are limited to a carry-on-sized bag. While we don’t strictly enforce that limit, our tour members are expected to carry their own bags from the bus to the hotel, and then to their rooms. And, because we strive to have centrally located hotels in delightfully traffic-free towns and old city centers, there are many times when getting to or from the bus involves a bit of a hike. Here’s our group leaving our Florence hotel (in another newly pedestrian-friendly, traffic-free center), and ready for Rome.

(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.)

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Road Testing the Rick Steves Audio Europe app

Rick Steves with app

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

As museums get more and more crowded, the value of the free audio tours on our Rick Steves Audio Europe app is increasing. This year, we’ve been producing several very important new tours and spiffing up existing ones, and I’ve been road-testing them as I travel. As our local guide led us through the Vatican Museum, I kept switching my earbuds between her tour and my recorded tour. Both worked great. (We fear that in the future, places like the Vatican Museum could get so crowded that leading a tour group through the collection will become simply impractical. In that case, it may be easier for our travelers to go through on their own. As guides, our job would be to simply get people in the front door, and then turn them loose with a Rick Steves audio tour.)

Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.

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Teaching in Europe

Rick Steves and tour group in front of David sculpture

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

I enjoy many aspects of my work. But perhaps the most gratifying is to stand before a great piece of art and explain it in a way that helps travelers fully appreciate it. And that’s what I got to do in Florence, in the inspirational presence of Michelangelo’s David, as I guided our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.

(If you can’t physically be with me or one of our guides at David’s beautiful feet, you can still have my voice in your ear. Just download the free Rick Steves Audio Europe app and search for the “Accademia & Michelangelo’s David” audio tour.)

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A Tight and Happy Group

One of the great things about taking a tour is the people you get to travel with (assuming you join a tour that markets itself in a way that attracts enjoyable travel partners). With our “no grumps” policy, our “carry-your-own bags” policy, and our unapologetically “characteristic” hotels, we do our best to scare away the high-maintenance travelers. I love looking at the happy faces of a group like the one I was fortunate enough to guide — especially after two weeks together.

tour group

Here’s the group, giddy to be with each other (or maybe it was just the thin air — at 10,000 feet above sea level, high atop the Schilthorn in Switzerland’s Berner Oberland).

Rick Steves with group in elevator

While touring the newly renovated and wonderful Museo del Duomo in Florence, we stayed until the very last minute. The museum guards, eager to call it a day, made sure we all packed onto the huge elevator at closing time and headed for the exit. Ciao!

Rick Steves on crowded bus

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

Part of the fun of leading a group through Europe is introducing them to public transportation — whether subway or bus. In Rome, our bus #280 from St. Peter’s Square to Trastevere for dinner was running late, meaning that when it finally arrived, it was jam-packed. With 28 of us on board, let’s just say it was a very local experience. Our “whisper system” headsets allowed our local guide to be in communication with each tour member…no matter whose armpit they were staring into.

Rick Steves and group on traghetto

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

As a guide, it’s fun to grab spontaneous experiences when they present themselves. There are always two considerations: Can 28 people actually do it efficiently? And is it a budget-killer? On my orientation walk through Venice before dinner, we were running a bit late. I came upon the traditional traghetto (gondola ferry) that crosses the Grand Canal where there’s no bridge, and I thought, “Wonderful — that’ll get us to dinner on time, and be memorable, as well.” The maximum capacity is 14 per boat, and they go every 3 or 4 minutes for €2 per person — so two boatloads got the entire group across quickly for less than €60…and we all enjoyed an experience we’ll never forget.

(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.)