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The Year’s Best Tour Scrapbooks — with a Surprise Ending!

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Bob and Pam Gudas’ Best of Europe in 21 Days scrapbook

 

One of my favorite spring chores is looking over the top entries in our annual tour alumni scrapbook contest. Each year we invite our tour members to share their experiences with a digital scrapbook. Our grand prize is a free tour. And the competition is so spirited that we’ve just finished poring over 60 entries from our 2014 season.

As the final “sorter” of the four finalists chosen by a jury of my staffers, having so many top-notch entries created a dilemma for me. One first prize was not enough. So, in addition to the first- through fourth-place winners chosen by the jury, this year we created an extra first-place winner — Rick’s Pick!

Without further ado, here are our five winners. I hope you can browse through each of these. They really capture the joy of travel and the camaraderie of sharing that experience with a great group of travel partners:

FIRST PRIZE: Gord and Julie Braun — Best of Europe in 21 Days wins a free Rick Steves tour (1 seat on an 8-21 day tour, or 2 seats on a 7-day city tour)

RICK’S PICK: Bob and Pam Gudas — Best of Europe in 21 Days also wins a free Rick Steves tour (1 seat on an 8-21 day tour, or 2 seats on a 7-day city tour)

SECOND PRIZE: Nancy Wickstrom and Julie Wynn — Best of Turkey in 13 Days wins a $500 Rick Steves gift card

THIRD PRIZE: Michael and Nicole Goodman — Best of Eastern Europe in 16 Days wins a $250 Rick Steves gift card

FOURTH PRIZE: Mandy Fonk and Tom Boyd — My Way Italy in 13 Days wins a $100 Rick Steves gift card

Beyond the prizes, there’s a bigger reward here: The two dozen people who went along on each of these tours now have a special record of the wonderful experience they shared.

I certainly feel that way about Bob and Pam’s scrapbook, since that’s the very tour that Trish and I traveled on last summer. For all of us who went on that tour, I’m sure this feels like “our” scrapbook. The Gudas’ great tour insights, fun photos and video clips, Pam’s original sketches — and a fascinating Fitbit tally showing how much exercise each day entailed — all combine to create a vivid review of the amazing amount of fun you can pack into three weeks on a well-designed tour with a fun group of travel partners.

Thanks so much to all of you who have shared your scrapbooks with all us. They make me eager to sign up for another tour!

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Stow Away with Me for “A Hundred Days of Europe”

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Today I flew — as I have every year at this time since the 1980s — to Europe to kick off another spring of exploring, checking, learning, tasting, and sipping. This photo features a bit of my “Welcome to Rome” meal — or what’s left of it — at Ristorante Fortunato. Oh, baby, I’m in for some good eating in the next couple of months!

I’m already enjoying thinking of the euro as being worth a buck. I’ve done this in the past (when a euro cost $1.35) in order to con myself into splurging a bit… but now, with a rate of $1.10 to the euro, that shortcut is almost honest.

Landing in Rome, I reviewed my guidebook for tips on getting into the center by taxi. It says, “The legal fixed rate to anywhere in the center of town is €48. Cabbies will complain and say it’s more. But insist. Say with confidence, Quarant’otto euro — è la legge (which means, ‘Forty-eight euros — it’s the law’).” Curbside at the airport, I asked the waiting cabbie the price. He said €56, maybe €60. I used my phrase and he nodded, opened his door, and we headed into town. A few minutes later, he offered me a mint and we were friends. Good information + confidence = smarter travels.

Starting on April 1st — this Wednesday — I’ll be posting entries daily for the next hundred or so days, reporting on my experiences. First I’ll be in Italy and Greece producing our Easter special, then researching my guidebooks in Rome, Tuscany, Florence, and the South of France. Then I meet my television crew in Germany to film our upcoming Reformation special before heading for London, South Wales, and southern England. Finally, in August, I’ll meet the crew again and film three shows on great German cities.

I hope you can enjoy stowing away with me here on my blog. Please share a link to the blog with your traveling friends and let them know that 2015 promises to be a great year of travel…and I’d love to have them come along, too.

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Meet Fellow Travelers in Your Town on Ricksteves.com’s Travel Group Meetings Forum

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Ricksteves.com may have my name on it, but it’s yours, too — a thriving meeting place where independent-minded travelers can meet, compare experiences, and share travel dreams. I’ve always enjoyed the notion that we’re all in the same travelers’ school of hard knocks, and it’s perfectly legal to share notes. And our lively Travel Forum community — so buzzing with activity — is made to order for exactly that. Whether it’s advice on a rail connection, a pesky scam you uncovered in Barcelona, or the perfect spot for a picnic overlooking the Seine in Paris, sharing experiences on our forums makes us all travel partners.

One of my favorite dimensions of our forums is the way travelers use our “Travel Group Meetings” section to actually get together in their hometowns. All over the USA, Rick Steves-style travelers are connecting in person. Right now, posts are up about meetings across the country, including ones in Nashville, New York City, Denver, and St. Louis.

Join in on the fun! 

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Warning: This Video Contains Violence to Guidebooks

Each year at this time, I perform a ritual sacrifice of guidebooks before heading off on a two-month research trip. If you don’t want to see a travel writer giddy with boxcutter joy as he slits the spine of his latest guidebooks, don’t click play. But out of this destruction comes new life, as we set out to bring forth a new season of lovingly updated Rick Steves guidebooks.

 

 

Between now and the end of May, I’ll be in Greece, Italy, and France, plowing under the old and bringing forth the new — all so we can enjoy happier travels. And for those who’d like to travel along with me, I’ll be posting nearly every day here on my blog and on my Facebook page. So get set and let your traveling friends know: We’ve got a lot of vivid (and shocking) travel thrills on the way, right here.

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Rick Steves Travelers’ Café — A “Third Place” Where Travelers Inspire Travelers through Blogs and Journals

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When I was in my twenties, my first really big media break came when I was invited to New York City to be on Arthur Frommer’s cable TV show. I remember Arthur putting his arm around my shoulder, looking into the camera, and — as if introducing me to the world —declaring, “Ladies and gentlemen, Rick Steves, the new Steve Birnbaum, Eugene Fodor, Temple Fielding of the travel guide industry.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I was just a scruffy kid who loved to travel and share my experiences. I was scrappy for publicity, and here Arthur was using his show to boost me. (By the way, those names — Frommer, Birnbaum, Fodor, Fielding — are from a bygone age when publishers were more willing to promote individual authors rather than brands.)

Today, a generation later, I find myself getting great joy from sharing my audience with other travelers who are, perhaps, the new Frommers, Birnbaums, Fodors, and Fieldings themselves.

Stay tuned for our new Travelers’ Café: a collection of blogs and travel journals designed to share the voices of people I consider inspirational travelers…people who may well travel with a gutsier spirit of adventure than I would these days, and who have a super-experiential approach to travel that’s well worth sharing. (And, OK, and some of them will be relatives whose trips I am personally thrilled with.)

Here’s an example: My niece has an uncle who loves her passion for inspiring children in the developing world to open up their hearts as they embrace life. She’s just flown to India to kick off an amazing project called “Hearts of the World,” which will result in a gallery show in New York City (where she works as an artist). She just landed in India and shared this quick note after half a day on the ground there:

Hey Rick!

Wow! We arrived in Delhi at 5:30 this morn… and already have had the craziest time, with so many hilarious scammers and nonsense and roundabouts. We’ve met a Sunny, a Chopra, an Ali, and a Rocky… We’ve learned how to say thank you, sorry, and crazy in Hindi, have been offered and drank three masala teas, and have found that in our hotel, nothing works. We are having such a great day! I feel so so alive and present. Based on this one morning alone it is clear that the blog is going to be immensely rich with content. Even the smallest task here is often a ridiculous and winding journey. This is my first chance at internet since we left NY and right now I am setting up the first blog and will email you and the crew when it is posted. :)

I already have soooooo much material and it’s only 1pm. Thanks for your support. I’m excited to make this project amazing.

More soon!!

xoxo Nic

You can follow Nicolina’s upcoming adventures at nicolinaart.tumblr.com.