On the last day of our guide summit, our Bulgarian guide, Stefan Bozadzhiev, graced me and our entire staff with a traditional Bulgarian blessing: “Let this year be very fruitful, with green and red apples on the trees, and golden wheat in the fields, and a house full of bacon and silk. And, most of all, may you be healthy throughout the year. Be blessed. Amen.” And, with this, we say goodbye to our guides…until we do it all again in 2017.
What Tour Guides Do on Their Day Off…in Seattle
Each night during our week-long tour guide summit, our guides enjoyed social activities. On Sunday afternoon — with the busy reunion parties and most of the meetings behind us — we loaded them into two old American school buses (Cosmopolitans on one, Bloody Marys on the other…take your pick), and set them free to explore Seattle. Here they pose with our famous troll under the Fremont Bridge.
Photo: The Travelphile
An Irishman in Edmonds Charms Tour Alums
At each of our tour alum parties, we give the mic to six or seven of our European guides, who take turns sharing the fun of their own culture and country. In this clip, Irish guide Stephen McPhilemy jokes about tour members confusing the Irish Republic Army (IRA) with Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA), shares his love of teaching on the road, and leads us all in a rousing bit of Irish folk singing.
Video: The Travelphile
Reconnecting with Last Year’s Travel Buddies
The 20th annual Rick Steves Tour Guide Summit was a multifaceted event. Along with our guides’ festivities, we have our tour alumni party — actually six parties of about 400 people each, spread over two days — when those who took last year’s tours gather to share scrapbooks and stories, and reconnect with each other and their guides.
Six times, we filled my old junior high school gym with tour alums who enjoyed reunions in the true sense of the word — “old friends” from our recent tours getting together with our tour guides.
At each of the parties, we had contests celebrating the group with the best attendance (Gummi Bears for all, as you see here); the tour member who traveled the farthest for the party (lots from the east coast and the deep south, winners generally from Florida); and the tour alum who’s taken the most of our tours (winners had enjoyed between 10 and 20 of our tours). Photo: The Travelphile
We also host 20 “Test Drive a Tour Guide” talks, where guides give those dreaming of taking a tour a slideshow explaining why we think our tours offer the best value in the business. With the help of a couple of guides, I enjoyed talking up our Italy tours on the main stage…with an auditorium full of travel dreamers.
Tour Guide Talent Show: The Great Spanish Debate
A highlight of our annual tour guides’ summit is our international talent show, which turns our living room into a jam-packed theater. In this skit, one by one, our Spanish guides debate which of the many delights of España are the most important for their travelers. From music, art, and wine, they finally reach consensus…with a beloved dance.