2022 in Review — What a Year for Travel!

It’s hard to imagine a more eventful year for travel than 2022. Reflecting on the last 12 months, I’m astonished at how much has happened in the world of travel — and in my own travels. It was a year of returning to the road despite COVID, yes…but also the invasion of Ukraine, the death of the Queen,  and so very much more. I’m not usually in the habit of quoting communist despots, but this saying from Vladimir Lenin suits our kitchen-sink times: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”

And so, here’s a recap of my 2022 travels. I hope it serves as a snapshot of the “state of travel in 2022” — one of the wildest, fastest-changing years I can remember. If you’ve been to Europe this year, you may find some of this relatable. If you haven’t, it may be illuminating. And mixed in are some personal travel stories I hope you can enjoy vicariously.

Fair warning: This recap is long. (I’m trying to tell you — a lot happened in 2022!) Bear with me and feel free to skim. If you’d like more information on any of these topics, I’ve linked to posts on my blog or on my Facebook page, where I was very busy this year, tracking my travels. (If you aren’t on Facebook, you may not be able to read some of those posts.) I plan to continue my frequent, real-time travel updates as I hit the road again in 2023. If you’d like to follow along, be sure to subscribe to my blog and follow me on Facebook.

Late 2021: Omicron Rising

One year ago, in the mellow days after Thanksgiving 2021, news broke of a scary new COVID variant that was spreading rapidly around the globe. For a brief moment, Omicron was, frankly, terrifying; some hardy travelers (including both Rick and I) had made tentative first forays back to Europe in 2021, and we were looking forward to “post-COVID” European trips in 2022. Our bus tours were nearly sold out, and we’d already started booking some guidebook-research trips. Omicron tapped the brakes on all those travel dreams. But gradually, it became clear that the new variant was more virulent, but less deadly that the original; rather than being a harbinger of more lockdowns in 2022, it marked a pivot toward travelers learning to live with COVID as we got on with our lives.

We pride ourselves on updating our Rick Steves guidebooks in person, typically every two years. But the global pandemic interrupted that routine, and we wound up taking an extra two-year hiatus on all of our titles. Rick, our managing editor Jennifer Davis, our publisher Avalon, and the rest of us at Rick Steves’ Europe knew it would be a massive project to get those books fully up to date, post-COVID. To get as many books out as possible by the end of 2022, we’d have to hit the ground running, do more research than we’d ever done in a single year, and compress our production timeline to do it faster than ever, to boot. Jennifer moved mountains to come up with a smart plan, and we spent most of the winter making research assignments and booking trips.

We were ready to hit the road.

Early 2022: Back to Europe!

When I took off for London in mid-February of 2022, I was the first one out — leading the vanguard of a team of 20 co-authors and researchers who would fan out across Europe to whip those books into shape. (Rick followed just a few weeks behind, hitting 10 cities on a 40-day research trip of his own.)

As a sign of the times, three things happened during my first week in London: A few days before I took off, Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth had contracted COVID. Around the time I landed, Boris Johnson announced the end of all COVID restrictions for the UK. (Both would be gone, in very different ways, by year’s end.) And a couple of days into my trip, Russia invaded Ukraine. (More on that later.)

For more than 20 years, I’ve spent three months of each year in Europe, mainly updating our guidebooks. At first, the forced break of COVID was, frankly, welcome: I’d been getting burned out, even jaded, and I didn’t mind having a rest. But after two long years, I was champing at the bit to get back to guidebook work. I was excited, and nervous.

That first morning, I woke up and surveyed my list: I had about 12 days to update our 600-page Rick Steves London guidebook. I had to start somewhere. So why not Westminster Abbey? I rode the bus to England’s top church and, before stepping inside, I snapped a photo to commemorate the occasion and posted it on Facebook.

One hour later, I came back outside with loads of handwritten updates scrawled into the margins of that book. One section down; hundreds more to go.  By the way, that Facebook photo wound up being by far my biggest ever — more than 11,000 people “liked” it. It was clear that I wasn’t the only traveler excited to be tiptoeing back to normal after such a long delay.

I worked hard in London — visiting, as I always do, virtually every single hotel, restaurant, museum, shop, and so on to personally check in with each business owner and to update their listing. I was very happy to confirm that the vast majority of our favorite small businesses — the mom-and-pop hotels and restaurants that are the cornerstone of our guidebooks, and of our style of travel — had survived the pandemic. I did notice another trend, however: Life changes. There were more divorces, retirements, and ownership changes than ever before. Some people call the COVID era “The Great Reshuffle.” Anecdotally, it’s clear to me that anyone who was contemplating a lifestyle change took a hint from the pandemic.

I also made a point to slow down and enjoy being back on the road — a pledge I’d made to myself during those many, many long months without travel. After many trips to London, I’d never actually been to Abbey Road. My Beatles fandom recently re-ignited thanks to Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, I decided it was time to change that — and made a point to add a 30-minute detour to that famous crosswalk at the end of a busy day of research.

On my day off, I headed to Kew Gardens to update our guidebook listing. And then I realized I was just a short bus ride from Richmond, the setting of Ted Lasso (a TV show which, like many people, I’d found much solace in during those dark pandemic nights). I managed to find Ted’s “local” and his apartment, and sat on a bench on Richmond Green watching dogs chase tennis balls for 30 minutes — which, strangely enough, may be my favorite travel memory for all of 2022.

From London, I flew to Rome, where I had another 10 days to update another 600-page guidebook. Whereas in London, it had struck me that most people were “over” COVID (with very few precautions and little masking), Italy was still behaving very cautiously: You still had to show your up-to-date vaccination card to enter a museum or restaurant, and masking was near-universal.

In Rome, too, I made a point to linger and enjoy. At one of my favorite sights in the Eternal City — the Protestant Cemetery — I enjoyed getting to know the local cats who hang out at the nearby cat hospice. But there was plenty of hard work to be done; on one gloomy day, I hit the pavement in the streets surrounding Termini train station, and updated 47 hotels in a single day.

While that was grueling, it was a treat simply checking out with our many hoteliers and restauranteurs, who take such good care of our readers (and, often, also our tour groups) that they feel like part of the extended “Rick Steves family.” Everyone was ramping up for what they hoped would be a busy year, but expressed concern that customers weren’t bouncing back as quickly as expected. In those early months of 2022, the one-two punch of Omicron and the Ukraine invasion had scared off many travelers. Roman hoteliers told me that they’d seen a flurry of cancellations.

In both cities, I noticed a big trend: During the pandemic, technology had been adopted in a big way. This makes sense: Before COVID, how many of us had ordered groceries through an app, or connected with friends and coworkers via video chat? In Europe, more and more museums allowed (or even required) prebooking tickets online, and many did away with borrowable audioguides in favor of apps you download to your own device.

One of the biggest changes was the rapid adoption of “contactless” or “tap” payment — by credit card, smartphone, or smartwatch. Upon boarding a public bus, instead of rummaging around in your pocket for loose change, you can now simply tap your card or phone against the pay pad. I love this system, which makes paying for everything so much easier.

While still on the road, I submitted both London and Rome — the full guidebook text files, plus dozens upon dozens of virtually marked-up maps. Back in the home office, our amazing editorial and cartographic team began the heroic effort of tidying up and finalizing those chapters to send to our publisher. I wrapped up with more research in Naples and Tuscany (Siena, Pisa, Lucca) before heading home.

Home Interlude: The Temporary European

I was back home for just a few weeks before returning to Europe on a second trip. This quick interlude was a blur, but it coincided with the promotion of my new travel memoir. Back in 2020, when it became clear I’d be grounded for a while, I took a sabbatical from my office work to collect many years’ worth of blog posts and turn them into a cohesive book. It turned out to be a beautiful opportunity to reflect on my two decades of traveling and working with Rick Steves. As I refined and filled in gaps, it became clear that all of those stories had the same theme: traveling as a temporary European.

The Temporary European: Lessons and Confessions of a Professional Traveler came out in early 2022. It’s a collection of my favorite travel tales, plus behind-the-scenes chapters about what it’s like to work with Rick Steves, write guidebooks, lead bus tours, and make travel television. It also gave me a chance to introduce the world to my wife’s well-traveled Great-Great Aunt Mildred, whose personal travel motto I’ve appropriated as my own: Jams are fun!

Early 2022 was a strange time to come out with a book. Bookstores weren’t really doing in-person author appearances, and virtual ones were already kind of passé. So, while the book was well-received, I didn’t quite get the “book tour” of my wildest dreams. That said, my publisher, Travelers Tales, set up several book readings over the late spring and summer where I had the chance to connect with my fellow travelers in person. It’s been just wonderful meeting many of you at cool independent bookstores — from Seattle to San Francisco to Columbus, Ohio — and hearing about your travels.

(Gratuitous plug: If you enjoy my approach to travel — or know someone who might, and need a stocking stuffer — you can get The Temporary European for 30% off through the end of the year on Ricksteves.com, as part of our Holiday Sale. And Amazon.com has the Kindle edition priced at an incredibly low $1.99 through December 4. Get yours now!)

Before long, it was time to head back to Europe. Next up: Poland!

The Ukraine Invasion…and Touring Poland

Back in 2020, we were all ready to run the inaugural departure of a brand-new Best of Poland in 10 Days tour, which I’d helped design (with the multitalented Robyn Stencil from our Tour Operations team). In fact, I was going to come out of “tour guide retirement” after many years of focusing on guidebook research to lead that tour myself — with a team of talented, mostly newly hired Polish tour guides.

Like so many other travel dreams, that got scrapped…but only temporarily. And in early May, I flew to Gdańsk — on Poland’s Baltic Coast — to meet Robyn, those four Polish guides, and our intrepid group to begin the tour.

It was a tall order: Not only had I not led a tour in many years, but it was a brand-new tour, and I’d be mentoring some talented guides who — fantastic though they were — had mostly not been on a full Rick Steves tour before. Plus, we had some complicated COVID restrictions to carefully implement: Testing all the guides and tour members before the tour, checking vaccination cards at the first night’s meeting, and ensuring that everyone remained safely masked on the bus.

All of that would have been complicated enough. But we were also leading a tour in a country whose neighbor, Ukraine, had recently been invaded by a hostile empire.

Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine is one of the most impactful geopolitical events in Europe in recent memory. I was fortunate enough to travel in Ukraine back in the fall of 2018; I learned a lot about the complicated historical “brotherhood” between Ukraine and Russia, and about the military standoff that was already happening in the country’s east. With this in mind, as Putin’s threats escalated over the winter, I had a very bad feeling that he was not bluffing.

The war in Ukraine — which has already cost somewhere on the order of 100,000 Ukrainian lives, and 100,000 Russian ones — has been somehow both shocking and utterly predictable.

Throughout Europe, I’ve seen Ukrainian flags and demonstrations of solidarity everywhere. While we in North America have (mostly) been cheering on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his ragtag resistance form afar, Europeans understand that the stakes are very high. For one thing, many Europeans are fundamentally pacifistic — a painfully hard-learned lesson from two devastating world wars. My sense is that they’re simply horrified at the thought of such atrocities happening anywhere on European soil.

On a more pragmatic basis, Europe still gets much of its oil from Russia. They want to stand up to Putin, which means boycotting (as much as possible) Russian oil exports. And that means scrambling for alternatives (whether it’s keeping open nuclear power plants that were slated to be decommissioned, as in Germany, or doubling down on coal, as in Greece). It also means that energy prices this winter will be extremely high, causing great anxiety and leaving Europeans scrambling to cut heating costs. (On a recent visit to a heated outdoor pool in Switzerland, a sign politely informed swimmers that they’d lowered the temperature by one degree Celsius. Every little bit helps!)

Of course, in Poland — as Ukraine’s neighbor, and a place with a history of unpleasant relations with Russia — the stakes are higher still. Something like two million Ukrainian refugees had crossed into Poland by the time our tour began in early May. I think many of us visitors were expecting to see tent cities and shantytowns filled with refugees…but we were surprised, and impressed, at how constructively Poland has absorbed all of these new arrivals into their society.

One day, I was having lunch with our Polish guides in the red-brick downtown of Gdańsk, and one of them pointed out a handsome old building across the street. “That was an underutilized dorm and activity center for Scouts,” one of them told me. “That sign with the Ukrainian flag by the door explains that now it’s housing refugees.”

In the context of all of this, our new Poland tour seems incredibly insignificant. But it was a fascinating case study in how the situation in Ukraine has (or hasn’t) affected travel. A few of our tour members told us they’d considered cancelling the tour after the war broke out, but decided to stick with it.

As soon as our tour members arrived in Poland and took a walk, they realized that it was a perfectly safe and stable place to be. It helps that Poland is in NATO; Putin understands that messing with Poland would have extreme consequences (which we saw recently, when a couple of missiles — apparently accidentally — crossed that border, and briefly put the world on high alert).

Long story short: The tour was a huge success. The itinerary came off without a hitch, even though it was the first time we’d done it. (Our biggest “problem” was that we kept arriving at the next town faster than our conservative estimates.) Those new guides were wonderful, and each of them has gone on to lead the tour on their own, to great acclaim. And our tour members — about half of whom, like me, have Polish ancestry — were thrilled they’d joined us.

It was a special treat for me to share some of my favorite places and experiences with the group. Particularly memorable was the chance to attend an outdoor Chopin concert in Warsaw’s huge Łazienki Park. This important custom, which dates back more than six decades, was suspended for three years due to COVID. It was a very special treat that we happened to be there for the first concert of the season. The park was filled with Varsovians who were thrilled just to be together again, appreciating the music of their beloved composer.

If anything, what was happening in Ukraine enhanced the educational value of the tour, allowing our tour members to better understand all of the complexities of what was going on next door.

One of our favorite moments came on a night when we’d planned a fairly conventional dinner for the group. Our hotelier, Jarek — a longtime friend to Rick Steves travelers who use our guidebooks — mentioned that he’d hired several Ukrainians to work in his restaurant. We had a brainstorm: Rather than cooking Polish dishes, as they normally do, how would those Ukrainian chefs like to cook us a traditional Ukrainian meal, to celebrate their home culture? They jumped at the chance and served us a delicious and unforgettable menu of their favorite flavors from back home. And Jarek invited a musician to serenade us on the traditional Ukrainian stringed instrument called a bandura, to boot.

If that’s not great travel…I don’t know what is.

Summer in Europe: Travel Gains Momentum

From Poland, I flew to Amsterdam, where I did more guidebook research in the Netherlands (updating five cities in five days), then Belgium (where Antwerp bucked the trend of small businesses surviving the pandemic — I had to scramble to replace nearly half of our listings).  And then it was on to Scotland.

Things everywhere had already changed dramatically even since the spring. Most COVID restrictions had gone by the wayside. Masking had become rare. And the crowds — who, back in March, had seemed to be tentatively dipping a toe in the water — were full-on diving back into Europe.

In June, I spent three weeks traveling all over Scotland, updating a guidebook whose first edition I’d pioneered back in 2015. In the intervening years, other researchers had passed through to put their touches on it. Discovering all the wonderful fixes and additions that happen to a guidebook over time is one of my favorite things about my work.

I enjoyed being in sunny Edinburgh during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, then rented a car and did a two-week road trip through the Highlands. This was a good old-fashioned European road trip, with loads of castles, moody glens, and delightful encounters. I watched a thrilling sheepdog demonstration in the cold drizzle, listened to some top-notch traditional music in an Inverness pub, and set sail to the Isle of Iona. I was thrilled to pull over for a perfect roadside encounter with a “hairy coo” (shaggy Highland cattle). And then, following up on one of the many great leads my fellow travelers suggested on my Facebook page, I discovered a wonderful up-close-and-personal hairy coo experience at a remote ranch. I didn’t even mind when I got drenched with rain for three days on Skye. (Well…maybe a little.)

Even just since my previous visit, Outlander has come to play a huge role in driving Scottish tourism. While it’d be easy to be cynical about the Outlander-ization of Scotland, I’m on board for two reasons: First, the novels and TV show are meticulously researched and — despite being a time-travel fantasy — do a great job of actually educating people about Scotland. And second, I saw firsthand that many people may come “for” Outlander, but once here, they wind up excited about Scotland in its own right. If a TV show, or a movie, or a book, gets people to a place that deserves to be on itineraries on its own merits…then I’m all for it.

Another big theme in Scotland this summer — likely driven, at least in part, by all those Outlander fans — was that the whole country was stuffed to bursting. Especially in smaller communities (such as the Isle of Skye), staffing levels remained inconsistent, and there simply weren’t enough B&B beds or restaurant tables to go around. I had trouble booking rooms for my June trip, even though I started looking way back in February; many of our top-rated B&Bs told me that even in January, they were sold out through the entire summer. And restaurants were booked out days, weeks, even months in advance. If you didn’t reserve well ahead in certain places, you’d wind up dining on groceries or takeout fish-and-chips. If you’re heading to Scotland anytime near summer, book as far ahead as you can.

Nessiegate

I was on a travel high one morning as I left Inverness and headed across the middle of Scotland to the Isle of Skye. My route took me right past the touristy north shore of Loch Ness, so I pulled over at the heavily hyped tourist zone along the lakeshore to check some details for our book.

And then…something inside me just snapped.

Immersed in one of the tackiest tourist traps in Europe, surrounded by greedy and crass roadside attractions, I felt an almost physical revulsion. I found myself feeling very sorry for all those unwitting travelers who’d come to this place, at a great investment of time and money, to stare out over an empty loch, then buy some overpriced trinkets.

On the rest of my journey to Skye, I occupied myself by mentally composing a Roger Ebert-type takedown of Loch Ness. That night, settled into my B&B, I had an absolute hoot writing up my little Nessie rant. It was a critique of the crassness of the Loch Ness tourist machine, yes. But more than that, it was intended as practical advice for the travelers who look to me for advice: Skip Loch Ness, because your limited time is better spent elsewhere. (You can read the complete rant here. Much fun as I hope this is to read, the Comments are even more entertaining.)

I chuckled myself to sleep and woke up to a predominantly positive response from my followers, on the order of “Thanks for the warning!” To be honest, I forgot all about Loch Ness.

But then, a Glasgow-based tabloid newspaper saw my post and published an article about it. (With everything going on in the world these days, I can’t fathom why a reporter would spend time scouring my paltry social media presence for material. But I digress.)

The story got picked up by another tabloid. Then another. Then another. I knew things had gotten a bit out of hand when I received a message from BBC Scotland, asking if I’d like to appear on their primetime news broadcast to “elaborate” on my thoughts about Loch Ness.

It was fascinating to have a firsthand experience with a British tabloid news cycle. For a very short while, I was the bane of the Highlands. One Inverness paper even  posted a “person on the street” video of several people telling me, one after another, how wrong I was:

All of that I could take in stride. But I also heard from Scottish individuals — some of whom lived along the shores of Loch Ness — who were, understandably, hurt and offended that I’d be so dismissive. It was an important lesson: My intended audience was North American travelers planning a Scottish itinerary. But when something “crosses over” to an unintended audience — in this case, the Scottish public — it just hits different.

I couldn’t blame these people for being offended. I actually corresponded with some of them, most notably Toby from Loch Ness Living, who made some great points — including that it’s not really fair to judge a place based on such a quick visit.  The general sentiment was this: If you’d spent a day or two here, had gotten off the beaten path, really explored and settled in, you’d come to appreciate the full beauty of Loch Ness. And on that point, I cannot disagree.

(Others were more succinct. One private message I received on Facebook read simply: “You boring yank twat.”)

In the end, I feel a lot of empathy for people who work in the Loch Ness tourist industry. But I’m not the only one who let them down. The fact is, to a traveler, “Loch Ness” is that insanely tacky and touristy strip that I drove along that day. The local tourist industry is designed to steer passersby to that version of Loch Ness, and only that version of Loch Ness.

As all of this played out over the next few days, I had plenty of time to consider what, exactly, had triggered me so grievously to begin with. In a funny way, my Loch Ness takedown was a direct result of the pandemic. During those two long years of not being able to travel — and especially when I was writing my memoir — I gave a lot of thought to why I travel to begin with, and how I could travel better going forward. It helped me better draw the line between my idea of “good travel” and “bad travel.” And I pledged to rededicate myself to “good travel” when I was able to hit the road again.

Literally everything else I did in Scotland ticked the box for “good travel.” But then I came to Loch Ness. And it was the antithesis of everything I love about travel: It’s designed to exploit an entirely fabricated legend about an imaginary sea monster. It was a slap in the face. This is what I — what all of us — have waited two years for? Have we learned nothing?

Here’s what gets my goat about the Loch Ness Monster: It tells you absolutely nothing real or authentic or insightful about Scotland. Scotland has more than its share of clichés, which it aggressively exploits to stoke tourism: kilts, bagpipes, golf, whisky, haggis, castles, hairy coos, Outlander, and the list goes on. But the crucial difference between all those things and Nessie is this: All of those things have something real to teach you about Scotland.

The people who work in tourism at Loch Ness deserve better. Scotland deserves better. If they’re angry with me, perhaps they should redirect their anger at a tourism machine that spends all of its resources promoting a fake monster, and very little celebrating the natural and cultural wonders of Loch Ness.

Coming Down with COVID: To Fly or Not to Fly?

Surely “Nessigate” was more than enough drama for one trip to Scotland. But no! Scotland was not through with me. (Call it “Nessie’s Revenge.”)

At the end of my seven-week trip (which began all the way back in Poland), I was pretty wiped out and ready to head home for the summer. On my last day of research, in Glasgow, I felt run-down. I chalked that up to simply working too hard. But as I drifted off to sleep that last night, I felt a tickle in my throat.

I woke up feeling rotten, and as I  finished packing for my afternoon flight home, I weighed my decision. Two weeks earlier, the US government had waived the COVID testing requirement to enter the country. I could very well have just gone to the airport and hopped on my plane, shedding virus all the way. But if I had COVID, I didn’t want to expose my fellow passengers on the nine-hour flight home.

So I took a test. And it was positive.

I had a few hours before my flight, so I called my wife (who’d just gone to sleep back home) and talked through my options. I decided to stay in Scotland.

There were two main reasons: First, I was feeling worse by the minute, and I wasn’t up for taking such a long flight in this condition. And second, throughout the pandemic I’ve been preaching the importance of looking out for each other. I believe that one of the main lessons of COVID should be that if everyone does their part — getting vaccinated, wearing masks, avoiding contact when you’re sick — we all get through. This was an unwanted opportunity to live my values.

So, I rebooked my flight and spent several extra days in Glasgow, recuperating in my little but cozy hotel room.

That makes it sound simple. But these things are complicated — even when you’re “sure” you’ve made the right choice. At one point, I realized that if I hustled, I could still make it to my original flight in time. But then I asked myself: Would I want to be sitting next to me on a plane right now? Would I want my parents to be sitting next to that person?

That first night — at exactly the time I’d have been boarding my nine-hour flight — my fever peaked. I was glad to be in bed and not strapped into a seat. Fortunately, I was fully vaccinated and boosted, so I had a full and swift recovery; my fever lasted about a day, and the rest of the time felt like I was just recovering from a mild cold. When I finally made it to Seattle, I was grateful to be home — but also satisfied that I’d made the right choice, both for my fellow travelers and for myself.

September in Switzerland and Italy: No Matterhorn? No Matter!

In September, after a restful summer back home, I flew to Switzerland for more guidebook updates. (As an indication of how quickly our guidebook team was cranking out titles this year, the London and Rome books I’d updated in the spring had already hit my desk by the time I took off in September.)

On my previous visit to Zermatt — way back 15 years ago — the weather was so bad, I never even got to see the Matterhorn. But this time, I was determined to hang on to my post-pandemic optimism — to count my blessings at being able to travel at all. That first morning, I rode gondolas and cable cars up to the highest lift station in Europe, at a place called Klein Matterhorn. The weather was glorious, with deep-blue skies. You could see almost everything, in every direction…with one small exception: The Matterhorn itself was socked in. I just shrugged and said, “No Matterhorn? No matter! I’m still on a Swiss mountaintop.” (And I’m happy to report I did see the Matterhorn, several times, later in the trip.)

One afternoon, hiking high in the mountains with a Matterhorn view, feeling far from civilization, someone called my name: fans of Monday Night Travel who were using the same guidebook I was updating. Because much of my work at Rick Steves’ Europe is behind the scenes, I rarely get recognized when I’m in Europe. But throughout my travels this year, I bumped into more and more fans of “MNT” (as we call it).

Rick and a team of moderators (Gabe, Julianne, Lisa, and Ben) started doing Monday Night Travel during the pandemic, to offer a little “armchair travel” and a weekly pep talk from Rick. (I’ve appeared as a guest or co-host six times so far, most recently to talk about Romania.) Our hunch was that frustrated travelers appreciated having a weekly outlet for their wanderlust.

But now that we’re back traveling again, people are still watching — and I’ve bumped into many of them in Europe. From Edinburgh to Scotland, and throughout Croatia, MNT fans told me how much those weekly Zooms helped keep them going. In fact, every one of them used the same word: it was a “lifeline” while they were unable to travel.  (If you haven’t checked out MNT, you should! You can see the schedule and sign up on the Monday Night Travel website — and it’s always free. My next MNT appearance will be some Poland talk in March…stay tuned.)

While most of my travels this year were return visits to old favorites, one of my post-pandemic resolutions is to keep on exploring — there are always new places to be discovered. In September 2021, on my first trip back to Europe, I made a point to check out Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region (staying in wonderful Modena) and the town of Treviso; in both cases, I was very glad that I’d sampled something new. That trip inspired me to keep going down my list of “new-to-me” Italian destinations. So, upon wrapping up my work in Switzerland, my wife and I took a few days off to explore the Piedmont region in northern Italy. And then, after she flew home, I stopped off briefly in Trieste on my way to Croatia.

Especially for a traveler who sometimes feel like I’ve “seen it all,” there’s a special joy in exploring something new. In Piedmont, we stayed at B&B in the Langue region just south of Alba and did some side-trips to the bustling city of Cuneo, the famous wine villages of Barolo and Barbaresco, and plenty of bucolic joyrides. Part of the adventure here was renting an EV (electric vehicle) — and being extremely steep on the learning curve when it comes to using an electric car for a European road trip. I suspect this is the wave of the future; if you’d like to learn from my mistakes, rather than your own, check out my post on EVs in Europe.

In Trieste — an utterly fascinating port city at the northeastern tip of Italy, completely surrounded by Slovenia — I was so captivated by the history that I broke my personal rule to not do any sightseeing on a day off. As an aficionado of Central Europe, it was thrilling to be in the primary Mediterranean port for the sprawling Habsburg Empire — facing the sunny Adriatic, but filled with grand buildings that would seem more at home in Vienna or Budapest. And as a James Joyce fan, I appreciated the modest museum about his time in Trieste, when he wandered the city as he wrote his masterwork Ulysses.

Trieste also reminded me that it pays to do your homework. For years, I’ve heard raves from fellow history buffs for Jan Morris’ book Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. I read it over the summer in anticipation of my visit, and practically used it as a guidebook once in town to track down fascinating little details. I would have enjoyed Trieste without it — but it definitely enhanced my time there. (What book have you read that transformed your appreciation of a place?)

I must admit, however: Much as I love Italy, I’ll never quite get used to the Italian airport experience.

October in Croatia: Changes Are Coming and the Saltshakers Are Empty

From Trieste, it was a short journey to this year’s final assignment: Updating our Rick Steves Croatia & Slovenia guidebook (which also includes highlights in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro). As the co-author of this book, and a tour guide emeritus on our Adriatic tours, I’ve been to these places more times than I can count. But for most of them, it had been five long years — so this trip was all about reconnecting with wonderful old friends, and reacquainting myself with favorite places.

No matter how many times you return somewhere, there’s always something new to discover. For example, just this summer Croatia opened its new Pelješac Bridge, which means that traffic on the main road between Dubrovnik and the rest of the country no longer has to pass through a tiny stretch of Bosnian coastline (which used to require two border checkpoints). It was interesting hearing from locals all the ways — both expected and unexpected — about how this bridge was transforming travel.

Avoiding those borders is more important now than ever, because in just a few weeks — on January 1, 2023 — Croatia joins the Schengen open-borders zone. On the same day, they’ll retire their traditional currency, the kuna, and adopt the euro. It was fun to learn about the new Croatian euro coins, but I must admit that this complicates my work: Between the staggering inflation across Europe (and especially in Croatia), and this new currency conversion, it’s nearly impossible to predict exactly what things will cost for my book next year. If a museum charged 55 kunas in 2022, the official exchange will be €7.30. Of course, it’s more likely that they’ll round it up to €7.50 or even €8 in 2023. Or — as many Croatians fear — they may just take this chance to make the jump to €10.

If you think you’re exhausted from reading this recap, just imagine how wiped out people must be who work in the tourist industry. As September turned to October, I heard the same thing again and again from my Croatian friends: We love travelers. We are thrilled they’re back. But, frankly, we’re exhausted. I began to notice that many saltshakers were empty; the season was winding down and they weren’t being refiled. It stuck me that the Croatian people were in a similar situation: all too ready for a winter replenishment.

Grand Finale: A Slovenian Youth Hockey Match

I wrapped up these many months of travel back “home” in Slovenia — my favorite country, and the place in all of Europe where I feel the most comfortable. I never tire of this wonderful place.

I said earlier that my favorite travel moment of 2022 was sitting on a bench on a sunny Saturday on Richmond Green, just outside London. I realize now that was my second-favorite. My favorite was going to a youth hockey game in Ljubljana.

My good friend and fellow tour guide, Tina Hiti, was in town between tours when I was in Ljubljana. She was busy, trying to pack in several family obligations, and it was tricky to find time to meet up. “Unless…” she said. “You wouldn’t want to come to Anže’s hockey game, would you?”

Until that moment, I never would’ve imagined how much it would appeal to me to attend a kids’ hockey match. But hearing it now, I practically jumped to my feet. “YES!!!” I said. “Just tell me when and where.”

I have a special relationship with Tina’s family (whom I write about in The Temporary European). She and I are close friends, having started out as tour guides together more than 20 years ago, and I’ve watched her two sons grow up. Her dad, Gorazd, is also a tour guide, who takes visiting travelers on day-trips around the stunning Slovenian landscape. Only once they’re well into their day does Gorazd sheepishly tell them that he used to be a hockey player. In fact, he was a star of the Yugoslav Olympic hockey team, and is one of the most respected hockey coaches in Slovenia. And, of course, he coaches his grandsons’ teams.

Tina picked me up and drove me a half-hour out into the outskirts of Ljubljana, where we pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript arena. Going inside, Tina greeted all the other parents and we took our positions on the bench. We spent the next two delightful hours catching up between cheers for her son, the defender, and her dad, the coach. They were squaring off against a team that had beaten them soundly the previous year. Expectations were low, and Tina explained that her dad’s coaching style wasn’t about winning or losing — it was about teaching the skills, and more important, the values that go into being a great athlete. Win or lose, it’s an opportunity to learn.

As we watched the game, Tina told me about the various players, pointed out their parents, discussed their relative strengths and weaknesses on the ice. As expected, the team fell behind early. And then, in the third period, they began to catch up. Ever so gradually, Tina and the other parents nudged toward the edge of their seats. Winning may not matter…but in this case, it sure would be a nice boost for the kids. I found myself getting caught up in the action, too. While I’m not a huge hockey fan, I’ve been to a few games. But I’ve never been as invested in one like this.

“Our” team managed to catch up in the final minutes…and the game went into overtime. By this point, the air was electric as we watched these 10- and 12-year-olds zipping around the ice, playing their hearts out. And then — goooooal! Victory!

After the match, we headed downstairs to the little café under the stands. There was much beaming, laughing, and congratulatory back-slapping. Even Gorazd’s gentle smile came with a special twinkle in his eye.

Sitting there, nursing a hot cup of tea in a grubby ice rink café, celebrating with Tina and Gorazd, I remembered once again — for the hundredth, maybe thousandth time this year — what it really means to be a Temporary European.

I saw some incredible sights in 2022. Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, the British Museum. St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum. The Madonna of Częstochowa, the Ghent Altarpiece, Edinburgh Castle. The hill towns of Tuscany, the canals of Amsterdam, the Scottish Highlands, the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. All of those are great sights, yes, and very memorable. But none of them will stick with me quite like that Saturday in the park just outside Ted Lasso’s apartment, that first Chopin concert of the summer in Łazienki Park, or that youth hockey game in Ljubljana.

For me, that’s the overarching theme of 2022. And I hope it’s also the theme of 2023, 2024, and all the years to come: Let us never forget what a privilege it is to be able to travel. Let’s make sure to savor it — to count our blessings, to live every moment to the fullest, and to always be present in our explorations of this beautiful planet. Our mission, as travelers, is to watch for those opportunities where we can stow our cameras and our guidebooks, and just melt into Europe…even if just for a few precious moments.

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Thanks for sticking with me through this long recap of an incredible year of travels. I’d love it if you want to join in the conversation in the Comments — what were your most vivid memories and lessons of 2022? What’s on your agenda for 2023?

If these stories resonated with you, consider picking up my travel memoir, The Temporary European: Lessons and Confessions of a Professional Traveler. In a way, this post is a sort of “postscript” for that book — a new chapter for those of you who’ve joined me on that journey. If you haven’t read it yet, take advantage of our 30% Holiday Sale, get it for your Kindle (where it’s just $1.99 through December 4), or pick it up at your favorite local bookshop. And thanks to all of you who’ve supported me in 2022 by buying a copy — it means a lot!

If you’d like to get your hands on those freshly updated guidebooks, about 20 titles are already out, with the rest rolling out in the coming weeks and months. All of our books — including all those new editions — are part of that 30% off Holiday Sale right now.

And if you’re intrigued by our Poland tour — or any other tour — consider taking advantage of our Seasons Givings event, going on through the end of 2022. Every tour is $100 off, and for each seat booked, we’ll also donate $100 to your choice of four major charities.

Happy travels in 2023!