Tour Guides

March 6, 2018March 12, 2018

Laughter and Joy with Our Family of Guides

Imagine having over a hundred European tour guides from 20 different countries fill your home with fun, laughter, and joyful energy. Plug in a mic and speaker in the living room for announcements, clean out the garage and throw down a carpet, borrow some extra chairs, hire a food truck to bring in dinner, and make sure there’s a bar downstairs to spread out the crowd…I’m still buzzing from this fun evening.

We have the most wonderful family of guides at Rick Steves’ Europe Tours. Every year, we fly them all in for a weeklong tour guide workshop here in Edmonds (just north of Seattle). Each day is full of tour-related teaching, sharing, and planning. And each evening, it’s time for bonding and social fun. For six nights, we pack various venues (and, later on, many invade a couple of bars on Main Street for after-parties).

I love our guides. They are remarkable people — big personalities with a love of culture, who embrace life with gusto, and who love to share their passion for their homelands. They also love American culture and their American travelers. Our annual summit is unique for them because they get a chance to be with all their colleagues — 140 kindred spirits.

We always try to give our guides a little dose of America during their annual visit. This year, we hired classic American school buses to shuttle the gang to a nearby Indian reservation with a casino, lots of big-box stores, an outlet mall, and Cabela’s — the gun-lover’s nirvana. (I heard one of our German guides remark, “We rode the American school bus to the gun shop. They even had pink guns for the ladies.”) That evening, the school buses headed into Seattle for swing dancing lessons in an old ballroom. And we capped the week with a 1920s-themed dance party, featuring a beer brewed especially for the occasion (“Swell Fella Amber”). Everyone dressed up like flappers and Al Capone (or the guy at the soda fountain).

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Thanks to Trish Feaster (The Travelphile) for the photos in this post!

March 5, 2018March 12, 2018

A Busy Week with Our Guides

Each winter, we celebrate Rick Steves’ Europe Tours with tour alum reunion parties, a tour guide summit, and a series of travel talks called “Test Drive a Tour Guide.” It’s all-hands-on-deck during this weeklong series of overlapping events, and I was just too busy to post — but I’m still thinking about all the fun we had, and I’d like to share some of it with you now.

For me, the most important part of the week is spending time with the guides (this year, 140 of them). We fly them in from all over Europe and the USA to our Edmonds headquarters for workshops, lectures, and discussions. Our travelers have high expectations (and nearly half of them are return customers), and we need to be sure we offer the maximum economy, efficiency, and experience for all who trust us with their vacation time and money.

At this year’s guide summit, I got to share a three-hour slideshow and lecture on what exactly a “Rick Steves tour” is (using photos I shot, with this talk in mind, on five tours over the last three years). And, our Tour Ops staff hosted an extensive round-table discussion for each of our 44 European tour itineraries, giving guides a chance to share lessons learned over the past year and to make sure that every hour on each itinerary is smartly designed.

This year, we also flew in our favorite Rome guide, Francesca Caruso, to give the entire team a powerful and inspirational talk on teaching art history and giving a good walking tour. (“Concise” is not brief. “Concise” is precise and clear. To make a tight talk, you select material, organize, and refine. A logical procession of ideas is less tiring to follow. A mind is not “a vessel to be filled” but “a fire to be kindled.”)

With all these guides in town every year, we figured, “Why not give them the stage and let them help us sell their tours?” So, we put on a daylong series of “Test Drive a Tour Guide” talks at three venues. (You can watch several of these presentations at home. Just go to the “Test Drive a Tour Guide” playlist on the Rick Steves’ Europe Tours Facebook page.)

Meanwhile, the gym is converted into a big party room for tour alums to gather and reconnect with their tour buddies and guides. (Yesterday, I posted a peek at the fun I had at one of these parties.)

And, to get even more value out of this grand summit, our radio team lines up about 25 hours of interviews with guides in our Travel with Rick Steves radio studio. This year, our recordings were what my radio crew and I consider the best ever. Here are the interview topics and schedule (as you can see, it was all a lot of fun for us):

There’s nothing like sitting down with a couple of guides — whether from Sweden, Ireland, or Sicily — and hearing all about their homeland.

After the guides all went home, my radio producer Tim Tattan put together this great little clip, featuring some of our conversations (as well as a few other snippets from the Travel with Rick Steves program archive):

https://www.facebook.com/ricksteves/videos/10155922590202745/

March 31, 2017June 2, 2017

In Memory of Mehlika Seval, 1949–2017

Mehlika Seval, mother, guide, friend, passionate advocate for a modern secular Turkey, died on March 27. Meli had a bigger impact on me than any guide I’ve ever worked with.

I met Meli on a day-long bus tour she was leading from Kusadasi. Seeing beach balls on the bus, she started by saying, “This is a demanding and educational tour, and I aim to give you a better understanding of our history and culture. I’m going back to the station so those interested in lying on the beach can take a different bus.” By the end of that day, watching Meli whirling gracefully through rustic villages, excavation sites, and lush countryside — introducing us to farmers at work, exotic taste-treats, and ancient statues as if they were alive today — I was only thinking one thing: I must connect this woman with Americans wanting to experience Turkey.

We agreed to co-lead tours, and a year later (still barely knowing Meli), I met her at the Istanbul airport with 20 eager travelers. I was a bit nervous — this was in pre-Internet days, and organized group travel in Turkey was dicey. But it turned out to be the beginning of a ten-year partnership in celebrating Turkish culture by getting American travelers out of their comfort zones. We discovered that the stimulation was perfect for nurturing a broader perspective. Meli co-hosted four TV shows on Turkey with me. (Our Eastern Turkey show, one of the most demanding and rewarding I’ve ever produced, is still in circulation.)

Meli was a passionate Turk in the modern, Atatürk sense. She had a hard-to-fully-appreciate admiration and love of Atatürk, who established the Turkish Republic in 1923 and remains the beloved father of modern Turkey. Meli’s father died during a moment of silence remembering Atatürk. As a young girl, Meli worried that she’d never be able to love another man because of her love of Atatürk. If there’s any blessing in Meli’s sickness and death, it’s that it came in time to deliver her from being aware of how the current president of Turkey is the anti-Atatürk. Knowing Meli, her reaction to his post-coup consolidation of power would have probably landed her in jail.

Meli danced at every chance she had. She was a mean backgammon player. She cared for her bus drivers as if they were family. She treasured her children, Asli and Ahmet. Meli fought for civil liberties and was a breathtaking example of a woman standing tall in a society thoroughly dominated by men. She spoke boldly against the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in her land. She traveled far and wide for many years across the United States, teaching at whatever schools would host her. Meli seemed happiest when on her tour bus. She seemed to live on her bus, meeting a steady parade of American groups, as she was clearly on a mission: to share her culture in all its fascinating glory…yesterday and today.

Meli’s teaching charisma blossomed at ancient sites (she wrote a beautiful tourist guidebook to her favorite, Ephesus) and in Turkey’s far east, where the ethnographic festival of Turkey is most vivid.

Anatolia, the land of mothers, has lost one of its finest. But Meli’s impact will live on in the generations of guides she inspired and travelers who she introduced so artfully to her beloved culture. Thank you, Meli. Bless you, Meli. And guide on.

Love,

Rick Steves and countless other travelers whom you inspired

January 19, 2017March 6, 2017

Video: Tour Guide Talent Show Highlights

We’ve just finished our annual Rick Steves’ Europe guide summit. A hundred guides are flying home, and we’re ready to lead our best-ever tours in 2017. Here’s a couple minutes of video fun we had as I hosted the entire gang in my house. It’s four clips edited together.

During our annual guides’ talent show, the Portuguese guides (men and women) grew cute moustaches and bushy eyebrows to become charming old men and sing a folk song. Cathie Ryan, our Irish singing angel, feted Steve Smith with just the right song to celebrate his retirement. Our Italian guides actually organized with the French guides to go on strike and refuse to perform (demanding that Steve stick around for “one more year!”). And finally, we all sang “Happy Birthday” to tour guide Keith in our own languages at the same time.

That wall of happy sound — so incomprehensible yet so full of vigor, fun, and love — reflected to me the amazing beauty of working with so much passion and talent from so many countries through so many amazing guides. Thanks to all our guides for their dedication, and for traveling all the way to Seattle to make sure we have the best-led tours of Europe for 2017. Happy travels!

January 19, 2017January 5, 2018

Great Guides Party in Edmonds

Last week we were very busy, as well over a hundred of our guides gathered for our annual guide summit for Rick Steves’ Europe Tours. In addition to the reunion festivities, “Test Drive a Tour classes,” and busy brainstorming sessions (designed to perfect each one of our itineraries), a great dimension of the gathering was the opportunity for guides from all over Europe and the USA to socialize. Each night, after hours, tour guides party. Here’s a little series of photos that capture a few of the countless wonderful moments that filled this week.

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

For me, a highlight of the guide summit is having the entire gang over to my house. We set up a tent to extend the garage, hire a food truck to feed everyone, and open the doors. Having 100 European tour guides take over your home is an exhilarating exercise of gathering 100 fun-loving, high-energy, fascinating people under one roof. Thunderous! My favorite night of the year.

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

While guides are good at getting the attention of a group of tour members, getting the attention of 100 guides can be a challenge. We finally settled down to enjoy our annual tour guides’ talent show, during which guides from various countries share a fun little act from their homeland.

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

The big buzz among our guides is the election of our new president. In one of the talent show acts, our Slovenian guides did a skit parodying our new first family, with a hilarious peek at what people from her homeland think of our new First Lady (who happens to be a Slovene).

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

This year was a bit bittersweet, as we celebrated the retirement of Steve Smith — one of our first guides, who, for the last 20 years, has worked to assemble and manage our guiding staff. Steve is my right-hand man in so many ways (as the co-author of our France guidebooks, in addition to his brilliance at developing and managing our tour guide staff). Thanks, Steve, for the years of fun and wisdom, as you have been so instrumental in building our tour program. The love and respect you have earned from our guides is testimony to the excellence of your work.

Photo: Colin Mairs

Each year, during a workshop break, we all gather in the street for a “family of guides” group photo. To be in the middle of this crush is lots of fun. Our Art Department staff — standing on a rooftop above us — designed this mosh pit of travel teachers to take the photo.

And here we are, the Rick Steves’ Europe tour guides…class of 2017.

Photo: Jorge Román

It’s so much fun as we host our guides to see how they make the most of their free time here in Seattle. From going to trapeze school, to making a pilgrimage to Bruce Lee’s grave (Bosnians celebrate him rather than political or military leaders, as their country has suffered so horribly because of nationalism and tribalism), to exploring marijuana stores (they’re sleek and so normal here in Washington State — but pretty wild if you live in Europe or a state here that has yet to legalize), to simply enjoying a little bowling.

Photo: Seumas Macletchie

Several of our guides (including Liz Lister from Scotland, shown here) were at Seattle’s big Alderwood Mall when there was a stabbing. The entire place was shut down, and our guides got a little taste of America and its jitters.

A very important dimension of our annual guide summit is the chance for me to sit down with our amazing guides in our radio studio for interviews. This week, we recorded about 20 hours of interviews for Travel with Rick Steves, which airs for an hour each week on 400 public radio stations all around the USA. Over the next year, we’ll be airing these interviews — ranging from Siena’s Palio (talking with a woman who lives in this year’s winning contrada) to getting a variety of views on Brexit (from English, Scottish, and Irish guides who voted either yes or no) to a celebration of Bulgarian cuisine (all of our guides know how to share their country’s cuisine as if it’s the greatest in Europe). In this photo, I’m talking with Irish guides Stephen McPhilemy and Cathie Ryan about all the latest on the Emerald Isle.