Video: Public Television at Your Service!

My TV crew and I are on a Mediterranean cruise, filming a special that will air on public television across the country in January 2019. Today, after an exhilarating (but, frankly, brutal) day of shooting on hot and arid Santorini, we caught the last tender back to our ship. When the security guard scanned my ID card, I was literally the last person to check back in out of the 3,000 travel mates I’m sharing this ship with. (You scan in and out of the ship so they know at any moment exactly who is on board and who is on shore. When you scan, they see a mug shot of you on their screen to make positive identification.)

The sun was low and the caldera of Santorini (with the lip of its crater lined with dazzling whitewashed buildings) was injecting my crew with a little more steam — and I had a notion it would be fun to whip out my iPhone and capture the process. Take a moment with this clip to see my producer Simon Griffith and cameraman Karel Bauer at work. I’ve worked with these two for 20 years now. (I must have spent 800 days filming with Simon, as he’s been with me for every moment of shooting in Europe.)

Also, take a moment to appreciate how public television works. There is no big advertiser shaping our content. This will be the only piece of travel journalism you’ll ever see that shows cruising in a frank, honest, and consumer-oriented way (with no agenda pro or con…simply driven by a passion for helping our viewers know their options and travel smarter, more economically, and with more meaning).

Forgive my little pledge pitch here, but this can only happen with your support. There are so many ways public television helps us live more open and enriching lives, with a positive and outward-looking spirit rather than a fearful and inward-looking one. If you recognize that, you know it’s more important than ever to keep public broadcasting alive and well in our community.

(To see more of me, Simon, and Karel at work, watch The Making of Rick Steves’ Europe.)

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