Smaller text Larger text

Destination: Uncategorized

Posted on

Your Questions Answered

Question: Why does Rick hate Greece? Was he beat up by a Greek bully as a child?

Many reacted defensively when I opined that, when it comes to beauty, mainland Greece and Athens don’t compare to many other European countries and cities. If France and Italy are at the top of the cuisine list, someone has to keep Norway company at the bottom. It doesn’t mean I don’t like Norway…or souvlaki. I had a great time in Greece (and I was not beat up by a Greek bully when I was a kid). I am open to Greece’s differences. I celebrate differences in my travels — that’s why I do it so much, really. And my observations about the rusty and ramshackle Greek mainland were just that: observations. If I said everything was sumptuous, “to die for,” magical…well, I wouldn’t be a travel writer. I’m the first one to admit that if I don’t appreciate a place, it’s often because I don’t know it well enough. I look forward to learning more about Greece.

Question: How do Greeks feel about Americans?

I’m sure there are Greeks who don’t like Americans and Greeks who like our president. But in these last two weeks in Greece I never met a Greek who liked our president. And I never met a Greek who didn’t give me a warm welcome as an American.

Question: How can you really know a hotel without staying there and paying for it like everyone else?

You can’t. I didn’t say that I learn all the hidden little warts. My point is, no guidebook writer can stay in all twenty hotels they mention in each big city. It is dishonest to say you can. You do your best to pick up all the little quirks and describe them honestly, whether you slept there for free, paid to sleep there, or didn’t get to sleep there. A charade of “quality research” based on the boast that someone doesn’t accept free rooms is a hollow sham that I just don’t embrace.

Question: Rick complains about Americans having the shortest vacations in the rich world yet doesn’t give his employees paid vacation. What gives there?

Fifteen years ago, when my company was little more than a gang of travel bums, we didn’t have paid vacations. We didn’t have any perks except an excuse to go to Europe and call it work. Today our 80 employees enjoy at least the American standard of paid vacation (admittedly nothing to brag about) and something much more. As an employer who’s never really worked for anyone else, I sometimes don’t empathize with employee needs, but I’ve also come up with creative alternatives that work really well. For the last several years we have given bonuses across the board equal to about a third of our salaries. Rather than paying people less and forcing them to take paid time off, we pay people more and encourage them to take time off without pay as they need it, while maintaining the option to take less time off and keep the money. We also let people with families work less than full time and keep all the responsibility they would normally have with a full-time position.

Question: When will Rick’s new TV series air?

Our new series will air starting in October on PBS stations across the US. New shows include: Barcelona, Istanbul, Athens and Side Trips, the Peloponnesian Peninsula, Dordogne, Burgundy, the Czech Republic, Copenhagen, the Danish Countryside, Great Swiss Cities, “Little Europe” (Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, and so on), and a surprise destination.

Question: How could an experienced traveler like you be caught off-guard by Greek Easter?

I wasn’t caught off-guard by Greek Easter. It just complicated our filming schedule. I had no flexibility in our production schedule, so we designed an itinerary that had us shooting through the holiday season and around the closures the best we could. This required mixing up two shows in one 12-day stretch — something we try to avoid. When you have a city of 4 million people all going on vacation at the same time, what is normally the cutest nearby island can be suddenly inundated. We knew we’d find most things closed and lots of family action on Easter Sunday, and that we needed to be in the right place to let that not mess up our filming. Therefore we flipped from one show’s destination to the other in order to not be in Olympia, for instance, when the ancient sight was closed. We secured our jet-boat tickets well in advance for the island, and so on. As it turned out, except for a few traffic jams and museum closures, we shot around Good Friday, Easter, and May Day just fine, and the extra pageantry and family action was actually a plus.

Question: Are your tour sales down from last year?

Our 2008 tours are a few percentage points below our best ever sales year (2007). Whether we take 14,000 or 13,000 people to Europe each year is not my concern. (For example, just yesterday I got an email from my staff suggesting we add Morocco to our list of destinations. We all love Morocco and it is less expensive than most of Europe, so it’s potentially more affordable for our travelers and more profitable for us. But I suggested that we not do Morocco, explaining that it’s not our realm of expertise, and I didn’t want to mess up our focus to sell a few extra tours in challenging times.) The cost of our buses, guides, hotels, and meals are in euros. This is what threatens our business — or at least our profit. Our costs have jumped about 25 percent in the last year — what we charge has not. Look for a big jump in tour costs (ours and everyone else’s) for 2009.

I’m in an exciting travel panic, heading off to a country that may surprise you. I don’t want to tell you anything more than that it’s a cash society where my credit card is no good, where ties are not worn because they symbolize the previous regime, and where urinals are non-existent for religious reasons. I’ll take you there in a couple days…In ša’ Allah.

Posted on

Catching a Culture With Its Pants Down

We just finished filming two great shows on Greece. Any careful observer knows I haven’t been that hot on Greece compared to other European destinations. I’m happy to admit, after these last two weeks, I am warming up. And I’m appreciating the uniquely Greek charms (food, people, history, pace of life, love of life) that explain why it is such a popular destination. But let me offer some frank observations (and open myself up to some enthusiastic criticism).

The Greek countryside has been depopulated in the last few generations. About one out of every three Greeks — roughly four of 12 million — live in Athens now. This leaves the towns feeling gutted of youthful energy. Granted, towns on the islands have that impossible-not-to-love iconic and exotic white-washed beauty. But driving through small towns on the mainland is like catching a tired culture with its pants down.

Sure, there are some cute towns. But, if you’ve been anywhere else in the Mediterranean you have to wonder, where’s the paseo…the passeggiata…where are the people? And I generally wondered what happened to the sublime sense of aesthetics that characterized the Golden Age — so inspirational that the best the ancient Romans could do would be to copy it. I find more classical Greek heritage of aesthetics is apparent in Paris or Florence than on mainland Greece. I don’t think money is an excuse. There seems to be plenty of money.

I asked myself, “Aren’t you being harsh?” But I compared the surface beauty of non-descript work-a-day towns in Germany, France, Ireland, and even Sicily, and I concluded it’s fair to say the Greeks channel their concern for tidiness and beauty to things other than fixing up their towns.

Except for some fine town centers, it’s a makeshift world with barely a hint of building codes or planning requirements. For example, next to the front door of an old church a rope dangled from the bell tower, as if strung up by a grade-schooler. I thought, this must be a temporary fix. With my eyes I followed the rope up to the cornerstone just below the bell and saw the groove worn by generations of pulling that rope. Stepping inside I just cleared electric wires strung across the nave. They were jerry-rigged, just tall enough to clear people’s heads, to light a bare bulb lashed to an old oil lantern that no longer worked and had been collecting dust for years. I find the rinky-dink stuff charming and photogenic. But if I went to church there, I’d fix it.

Driving in Greece is like Italy used to be. Parking is chaotic. Sidewalks and curbs are broken. And when there is an intact sidewalk, it’s been interrupted by a strip of ridges to guide the canes of people who can’t see. A compassionate sentiment…but these are rendered unusable by parked motorbikes, flower pots, and sales racks spilling out from kiosks. I’ve never seen a blind person try to use this sidewalk aid and if they did, it would only be frustrating. The result…smooth sidewalks are a rarity.

Ironically, amidst what I’d call the most littered country in Europe, I found two heroic attempts at hygiene that I’ve encountered nowhere else. Restaurants serve napkins in sanitized plastic wrappers. And I was actually startled in a men’s room when, as I passed a garbage can, its lid opened. It was equipped with a well-meaning motion sensor. But merely entering the space caused it to give me the trash-can body-language equivalent of, “Feed me.”

Athens is hugely improved and filled with the youthful energy I found missing elsewhere. An even-number, odd-number license plate system allows people to drive into town only on alternate days. That, along with a marvelous underground system, have made the city less congested. While it used to turn my hanky black in a day, the air now seems much cleaner. And it’s much more people-friendly with welcoming pedestrian boulevards and squares filled with benches, shade-giving trees, and inviting cafés rather than parked cars.

Forgive my harshness. Grecophiles will be up in arms I’m sure. (I’d welcome comments.) I’ve spent a month out of the last year in Greece and am really enthusiastic about our upcoming book on Athens and side-trips. It was strange to be in a country where travelers had no option for a Rick Steves guidebook. With the help of my Grecophile collaborators, our book will be a winner and I am enthusiastic about heading off ASAP with the first edition of this book (due out in early 2009) to update it and learn more about Greece.

Posted on

Travel Writer Cheats…Stunning the World

My friend Michael Shapiro recently did an (Google-able) article for the Washington Poston a little scandal caused when Lonely Planet author Thomas Kohnstamm admitted he cheated on his guidebook research chores. The media jumped on this to discredit the world’s greatest guidebook publishing company and Michael wanted my take on things. I thought you might enjoy the interview.

Michael: I’m working on a Washington Poststory about guidebooks and how they’re written. As you may guess, the jumping-off point is LP’s Kohnstamm and his recent comments about plagiarism, payment, trading positive coverage for favors, and his claim that he didn’t visit some of the places he wrote about.

Rick:It is a trust to write and research a guidebook. The formula is more shoe leather than genius. While LP is not updated as often as I’d like it to be, that is the nature of the book business when you are trying to stay in business. It’s not easy to both publish good guidebooks and be profitable. I have always found LP books to be among the best and fear this Kohnstamm thing is a bit of a anomaly.

Michael:Do you visit all the places mentioned in the books? If not, from where do you get the information?

Rick:I visit virtually every place mentioned in all my books. Lately, as our scope has grown, I have research assistants and co-authors helping. On a rare occasion I will list something as an option without visiting it but am careful to give it no opinion or assessment, just explain that it exists (e.g. an embassy, tourist office branch, or Laundromat). In these cases, I get the info from the tourist office or from people who run hotels who rely routinely and happily on that service for their clients. I guess my biggest “cheat” is listing a remote agriturismo someone I trust raved about. But, again, in this case I am careful simply list it with no assessment.

Michael:Washington Post travel editor KC Summers told me you’re open about taking freebies — do you feel this can affect your recommendations in any way? Are freebies or discounts inevitable? Do you disclose that you accept some discounts or freebies?

Rick:I take freebies. I know many journalists make a huge point about not taking freebies to avoid corruption (and then proceed to write as shills for the local tourist industry). My job is to sort through all the come-ons and deceptive advertising and bogus sights and activities and distill things down for my American readership, which has the shortest vacation in the rich world, along with a dollar in the tank.

I was in Portugal last week. In six nights in Lisbon, I slept in three different hotels — all for no charge. One was provided by the tourist board — a fancy “design hotel” which I did not like. Staying there affirmed my feeling that “design hotels” are passionate about “function follows form” — bad news for my travel priorities. The two other places have been in my books for years. One is reported (from my reader feedback) dirty. The other has prostitutes loitering on that block. By staying at each place, I’ll know them more intimately (the hotels). Ironically (and don’t tell them), a place that gives me a free room is more likely to be down-graded or dropped from my guidebook because by actually sleeping there I’ll learn about a noise problem in the wee hours, thin walls, or horrible breakfast that I might not discover with a quick visit. (I believe anyone who claims to actually sleep in all their recommended accommodations has a small book or is lying.)

Many small guesthouses have been in my books for years. I send them a quarter of their business and they would never want to charge me. I believe I am incorruptible when it comes to my listings. I have never hidden that fact that I take free rooms and a free meal now and then. One night last week I popped into three different fado bars to check out the music and ambience. I told them what I was doing, paid for nothing, and had a very productive night assessing where my readers might want to go for their local musical experience next year.

Michael:Beyond his inflammatory comments, Kohnstamm raised larger issues — not enough time to visit all the places listed, incentives to accept freebies that could affect judgment, and so on that he suggests affect many writers and guidebooks. Your thoughts?

Rick:My understanding is that guidebook researchers and writers are generally no longer getting royalties. This demoralizes a hard worker. I believe I’m one of the few travel writers today still getting royalties. That makes my pay based on the quality of my work and the long term loyalty I have to the project. I stick with my publisher and with my readers and with my guidebooks through thick and thin. Consequently, I make good money with the books.

Michael:How many titles do you now sell?

Rick:I have 30 titles on the bookshelves now and sell probably about half a million books a year.

Michael:How many total books per year are sold worldwide?

Rick: I have no idea. But I do know that 12 million Americans travel to Europe each year and I believe that the very best selling guidebook to any European country from the USA (which happens to by my Italy guidebook) sells well under 100,000. In other words, there’s plenty of business for all the travel guidebook publishers. The challenge for all of us guidebook writers and publishers is to impress upon the traveling American public that guidebooks are $20 tools for $3,000 experiences and to travel without one is classically pennywise and pound foolish.

Posted on

Very, Very Small Fish

Today, after 12 days of research in Portugal and 10 days of filming in Greece (we’re nearly finished with two Greek TV shows), my battery ran out.

I told the crew I’d take the afternoon off while they covered more of the script in Athens and sent home a pile of precious tapes via DHL. Lounging on the 10th-floor roof terrace by the pool at 5 p.m., the sun was strong enough to burn.

I went to dinner with a print-out of my son Andy’s travel journal (experiences enjoyed as weekend side-trips from his semester-abroad base in Rome).

The hotel (the epitome of a “front-door” place the tourist board kindly set us up in for our filming) lances my spirit — noisy tour groups, smoking business men, and menus with international food for triple the price you’ll find for the equivalent just down the street.

I walked around the corner to a great little dinner spot. Ordering dinner alone without the TV crew (Simon and Karel), I couldn’t share dishes and therefore had less variety. It made me realize how much fun I’ve had with Greek food. The mixed appetizer (meze) approach is great — the three of us order one fish plate and four or five (meze)plates.

We joke how each night the bill comes to almost exactly €45 (about $23 each). The selection, while predictable and routine after 10 dinners, never got old. Tzatzikidip, garlic dip, fava bean dip, or a mix of all three on single serving plate (€4 with fresh bread — often toasted). Fried aubergine (eggplant) or zucchini. Four big grilled peppers on a plate — red or green — stuffed with feta cheese. Always a big Greek salad (€7, one salad feeds three people and the waiters are honest about not up-selling…each night saying, “One is enough”).

While the salad Nicoise so popular in France comes with a variety of recipes and lots of controversy on exactly what makes a proper salad Nicoise, the Greek salads we ate were always the same simple, wonderful, locally grown, fresh ingredients (tomato, green pepper, cucumber, onion, olives, feta cheese) with the perfect olive oil.

And then something from the sea — grilled calamari or sardines or a plate of fried small fish (three inch), very small fish (two inch), or very, very small fish (one inch). One night we took it to an extreme and had taramosalata(fish roe spread) — underwhelming.

The Greek beer, Mythos, comes in a big half liter bottle is good and feels right here. Big lemons beg to be squeezed and just about everything is cooked in or drizzled with olive oil.

Proud Greeks told us that their new prime minister is stopping the practice of Italians buying Greek olive oil to sell as Italian. Until now, the Italians (with their extra virgins) have the marketing edge…but the Greeks are determined to show the world that (regardless of virgins) their olive oil is at least as good.

It seems when our bill hits a certain threshold (or we come back for a second meal) we are given a free little dessert (halvah with shredded coconut tonight).

For price of club sandwich in our boxy skyscraper hotel (€17), I get a plate of very small (two-inch) fish, a huge salad, and a big cold Mythos. It was a delightful evening as I was alone with my son’s journal (24 crisp pages printed in the hotel business center). Andy’s writing shows me that a critical part of the mix is generating experiences. He does Europe without business concerns — filling each day with new European friends and college kid adventures and artfully describing it all. I hope to serialize his journal this June on this blog (when I’m back home for a month). Stay tuned.

With three-inch fish, I leave the head and tail (and try not to wonder about the once inky, now dry-black guts). With two-inchers as finger food, and working my way through my son’s journal, there’s nothing left but a line of greasy fingerprints on the fringe of my paper tablecloth.

I walk home a traveler, an eater, and a dad well-satisfied.

Posted on

Salutation to Hydra

I’m back on the idyllic, traffic-free Greek Isle of Hydra. Today is our first light day after a week of TV production. We’re meeting at 10 am. Wishing I could sleep longer, I’m wide awake at 6:45. I picked up some ugly oranges on the way to my hotel last night. The oranges were so unsightly I almost didn’t buy them. On my dresser, they look like Van Gogh’s last meal. Enjoying one, I’m reminded that in Europe, ugly means tasty.

Standing in front of my window, pushing open the shutters, I’m greeted by a cool, almost mountain breeze pouring through my window on this May Day. I stretch while enjoying the view. My legs are strong but my back is stiff.

A clutter of red-tiled roofs has the texture of Triscuits. In fact, they look like a sloppy pile of Triscuits tumbling up the hill away from the harbor. High above, at the horizon, a sun ray slashes from behind a hill, across a ravine, strangely obliterating a hill-capping monastery in a good morning glare.

Seven o’clock brings a chorus of tinny church bells. The clang of bells, which sound like dinner triangles on a cowboy ranch, seems to call the barnyard awake: dogs, roosters, a million baby birds cry for breakfast, and old burros snort…clearing their sinuses. Pigeons coo, sounding like owls or perhaps vice versa. A black cat prances nimbly across a roof.

I trace the route Anne and I took just seven months ago. Intending to take a lazy stroll around the block from this same hotel, we ventured up and up…succumbing to a strangely powerful pull of intrigue. We were drawn higher and higher, up to the top of Hydra town. Descending over a saddle, we followed the concrete flash flood bed through more Triscuit-roofed houses to a pocket-sized harbor of a tiny neighboring village. From there we watched the sun set through cloudy ouzo in tall glasses as a rock at sea, capped by a white church, became silhouetted and busy boats laced together the Aegean world.

It was there, on that same sunset perch the next night, that I decided to come back in Spring of ‘08 to make an Athens TV show. A show focusing only on Athens wouldn’t quite do it for me. But Hydra, just two hours away by jet boat, rounds out Athens as both a great destination and a great TV script.

I lean slowly to the right, hold it…creak slowly to the left, hold it. Then I let my vertebrae tumble like an ancient column in an earthquake, until my head passes my knees. Standing tall as I can, I inhale that waking village ambience knowing that, in a few hours, the sounds of children playing will be added to the audio mix. After this salutation to Hydra, I’m ready for a Greek island day.