Tour Guides

January 22, 2015

Celebrating 2014 and Looking Ahead to 2015 at Our Tour Reunion

The annual Rick Steves’ Tour Reunion has dominated our work for the last ten days. The event is a twofer: a huge party celebrating tour members who joined us in Europe last year, and a “guide summit” with lots of strategic meetings for more than a hundred tour guides.

Last Friday and Saturday, we welcomed nearly 2,000 alums who had joined our tours in 2014. We filled a big room for six parties over two days. And with so many guides in town from Europe and across the USA, we took advantage of the opportunity to huddle before and after the parties. During the big all-guides business meeting, our homebound staff invaded the conference center and serenaded our guides with Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (the national anthem of the EU). We also met with our guidebook research team, which includes many of our tour guides. And I took the opportunity to interview several guides for upcoming segments on my radio show and podcast, Travel with Rick Steves.

In case you missed it, here are some photos to give you a flavor of the event.

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Photos via The Travelphile and Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli.

May 31, 2014January 4, 2018

Guide Work in Rome

With more than 600 Rick Steves tours a year, we have guides working all over Europe all the time. It’s an amazing pool of talent, passion, and travel savvy. They have their own digital communication portal and are constantly rendezvousing, sharing ideas, lessons, and having fun. For me, touring with Reid and Trish is a good chance to get in on the social end of things. Here (from left) guides Ben, Francesca, Trish, Reid (mugging for the camera), and me try out a new restaurant near Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. (By the way, many of the photos on this blog are shot by Trish Feaster, whose own blog is at The Travelphile.com).

There are plenty of people researching for various guidebooks and websites in Europe, and rarely do I feel a strong, kindred spirit with them. But meeting Tom, who founded EuroCheapo.com, was really fun. Tom is a hotel wonk; he’s friends with many of the same hoteliers that I’ve recommended for decades. He’s right up-to-date on the trials and tribulations hoteliers are suffering in this age of Booking.com and TripAdvisor. Even the most independent of hotel spirits are finding themselves “invisible” if they don’t enlist with booking sites (like Booking.com). I don’t understand how these various booking agents can justify taking 18 percent of a hotel’s gross income when you compare all the real investment and tangible expenses of running a hotel to a website. Here, over a fascinating conversation about the hotel business, Tom, Trish, and I are enjoying one of my favorite kind of restaurant: an enoteca (a place specializing in fine wine by the glass and simple, rustic plates of ingredients that pair nicely with the wine).

As a tour guide, even when trying to vacation on a tour led by someone else (as I’m doing on this Best of Europe in 21 Days tour), I can never let a teachable moment go by. On this tour, each of our guides stops by his or her favorite hill town to break the long drive from Rome to the Italian Riviera (Cinque Terre). Reid stops at Massa Marittima–a delightful hill town that was new to me. Walking around its medieval walls, we came to a fig tree. After all the fig leaves we saw yesterday at the Vatican Museum, I just had to try one on. All I can say is, “They’re really sticky.”

February 6, 2014November 30, 2018

What Does It Take to Be a Rick Steves Tour Guide?

After sharing the fun of our annual guides’ summit, we wanted to answer the most common question we hear: “What does it take to be a Rick Steves tour guide?”

To be honest, we don’t have a set procedure. We have about 130 lead tour guides. Most are Europeans, but plenty are Americans. Many are already professional guides working with (or fleeing) other tour companies. A few are friends of our company who have been with us since they were kids, packing boxes in our mailroom. These days, our guides are mostly established professionals who come to us with impressive experience along with an enthusiasm for guiding “the Rick Steves way.”

For an insight into the way our guides are managed, here’s an interview with Steve Smith. One of our very first guides (#4, to be specific), Steve led our entire tour-guiding team until his retirement in 2018.

How did Steve start? Back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed “pack man” for the phenomenal way he sold our suitcases and backpacks. He’s our in-house Francophile, who single-handedly established our France program (co-authoring my France, Paris, and Provence guidebooks, and turning this sandwich-munching Viking into a person with a love of France). And all along, I count him as one of my best friends. With the short interview below, I’d like you to meet Steve Smith.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

There’s no one recipe for how to become a Rick Steves guide. But our current crop of guides has set the bar extremely high. All of our guides have several things in common: They are very well-traveled, they love Europe, and they’re excellent teachers who can convey their passion and in-depth knowledge of Europe, its history, and its culture to a group. Most of them spend extended periods of time in Europe, studying or working; most currently live in the country where they guide, speak the local language, and have a lifestyle that allows them to be on the road for up to three months each year. And every single one of them excels at organizing, leading and teaching people .

February 1, 2014January 5, 2018

The 12th Man Tour Around the World

When our tour guides were in town a couple of weeks ago, they experienced a lot of the NFL playoff hype… and many have become hardcore Seahawks fans. In fact, the 12th Man now has a passport and is showing up in places like Prague, Budapest, Hawaii, Ireland, Madrid, and Paris. Go Hawks!

George Farkas at the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, Hungary.

Colin Mairs at the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow, Scotland.

European guides Stephen McPhilemy, Trina Kudlacek, and Mert Taner take their 12th Man pride on holiday to Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.

Barry Maloney before a secret surf spot on the South Coast of Ireland.

Elisabeth Van Hest at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

Karin Kibby and Fabrizio Signori standing on the Field of Miracles in Pisa, Italy.

Jana Kratka, Jana Hronkova, and Katka Svobodova in front of the Týn Church on Old Town Square in Prague, Czech Republic.

Nina Bernardo standing in front or the original “superbowl” — the Colosseum in Rome, Italy.

Amanda Buttinger and her son Teo Gabriel at the Prado in Madrid, Spain.

And back in Edmonds, Washington everyone at my office is catching the Seahawks spirit...well, everyone except for our lone Broncos fan, co-author Cameron Hewitt. — And back in Edmonds, Washington everyone at my office is catching the Seahawks spirit…well, everyone except for our lone Broncos fan, co-author Cameron Hewitt.

Even though I’m a 12th Fan, there’s no denying the Seahawks will meet their match in New Jersey. This will be an epic game! Go Hawks!

January 25, 2014January 5, 2018

Guides’ Variety Hour: Scotland, Haggis, and Happy Birthday Robbie Burns

Today, January 25, is the birthday of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Robbie Burns was one of the Romantic Age poets who stoked Scottish national pride in an era when there was much pressure for Scotland to be absorbed into Britain. To celebrate his country’s national poet, our newest tour guide, Colin Mairs (who I just met as my private guide to his hometown this summer in Glasgow), recites the beloved “Ode to a Haggis,” capped by all of us drinking to bonnie, bonnie Scotland and Robbie Burns.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.