My co-author and frequent collaborator, Cameron Hewitt, is well-traveled, smart, and insightful. And, while he and I are in perfect sync in our travel styles and priorities, he gives voice to the next generation of "Rick Steves travelers." Join me in enjoying his reports right here. —Rick
“I love using Rick Steves books! I take them along on every trip. In fact, it’s challenging when I go someplace that Rick doesn’t cover. Everything’s just so much harder.”
I hear this a lot when I bump into fellow travelers in Europe. Many are fiercely loyal to their Rick Steves books…maybe even to a fault. (Some B&B owners grouse that our readers refuse to consider their personal, carefully curated restaurant recommendations…just because they’re not “in the book.”)
And the flipside of loving Rick Steves books is getting frustrated when you don’t have one. I just got back from a vacation to one such place, New Zealand. And struggling with travel information that felt like it was nibbling around the edges of actually being helpful, while leaving me with more questions than answers, got me thinking about what makes a good guidebook…a good guidebook. And so, from the perspective of someone who’s spent more than 20 years working on the Rick Steves books, here’s my take on the “secret sauce” of what sets them apart.
I brought along four different guidebooks to New Zealand, hoping to cover as many bases as possible. And I found some great tips, leads, and advice in each one; all of them earned their weight in my rucksack, at one point or another. But at the same time, all of those books spent more time in my bag, or in the backseat of my rental car, than in my hands. They were useful to a point, but they weren’t indispensable; they didn’t give me the feeling of actually traveling with a knowledgeable friend. Why? What’s missing?
One of the biggest problems with many other guidebooks is that they strive to be comprehensive, which forces them to skimp on depth. You know: “Jack of all trades, master of none.” A typical publisher’s book on New Zealand assumes an obligation to cover any city or town in the country over a certain size — regardless of how visit-worthy it may be — which spreads resources and word count too thin.
Conversely, you could rightly ding Rick Steves books for not covering enough places. Travelers are sometimes aghast that we don’t include Bologna in our Italy book, or Geneva in our Switzerland book, or Valencia in our Spain book, or Bordeaux in our France book. And if you’re going to those places, your disappointment is understandable. However, years ago, Rick determined that being selective was key to providing solid guidebook coverage. So, if a place is covered in our books, it’s covered completely. But that means we can’t get to everything.
Which leads into the next feature of those less-satisfying guidebooks: They assume that travelers are independent spirits who don’t want or need detailed, prescriptive information. Surely there are travelers who fit this description. And those travelers would probably find Rick Steves books too hand-holding, even pushy.
But the fact is, when most travelers are going to a new place, deep down they really want someone to help them shape their trip, whether it’s a trusted globetrotting friend, an Instagram or TikTok influencer whose travel style matches their own…or a good guidebook.
That goes double for us Americans, who have the shortest vacations in the rich world. (It feels borderline-subversive that my wife and I took two whole weeks for our New Zealand trip.) We American travelers need to be efficient and smartly use our time, even if some of what we’re using that time for is just relaxing. After all, some places are better for relaxing than others…and we’d like to know which are which.
That’s why a hallmark of Rick Steves guidebooks is that we’re opinionated. We’ll tell you, unapologetically, our idea of the best way to plan your time, and we’ll rank sights (using our “pyramids” system) based on our highly subjective opinion about which are the most worthwhile.
That said, if you read between the lines of our books, you’ll notice that only a select few favorites are presented as unmissable. Rather, for the vast majority of our listings, we try to describe them with precision, clarity, and actionable details — knowing that a specific place is not for everyone, but hoping to steer each traveler in the right direction. When we describe a hotel, a restaurant, a museum — really anything — our guiding principle is to give the reader enough information to make their own decision about whether it’s worth their time. We want to help them knowledgably distinguish among their many choices.
For example, let’s get back to that “relaxation” goal, and specifically beaches. If you’re in an area with several beaches, our job is to help you sort out which one suits your style. Are you a boogie-boarder or a snorkeler? Do you like gentle wading or splashing in surf? Sand or pebbles? Family-friendly, mellow, or rollicking beach bars? Shade or sunshine? Best for long walks or for sunbathing?
Taking the time to parse these kinds of choices also helps make our books feel personal, handcrafted, and approachable, rather than stuffy and generic. Often, one of our biggest challenges when training new researchers or editors is convincing them that the quirky takes, memorable turns of phrase, offbeat sense of humor, flashes of informality or even irreverence…these aren’t “bugs” in our books; they’re features. They remind the reader that there are real people hiding out between those pages, leading you by the hand through Europe.
Your narrator “Rick” (whether or not Rick personally wrote it) prides himself on taking you to a little hole-in-the-wall tavern where you can sample the local firewater, or a bakery to nibble a favorite pastry. Along the way, he’ll fill you in with gossipy tangents about the neighborhood you’ll be calling home for the next few days. He’ll introduce you to the owner of the place, and point out all the quirky decor plastered to the walls. That kind of intimacy is risky, and it’s rare — and it’s why people love our books.
So often, using those other books on my trip, I felt like they were scattering a few sparse breadcrumbs for me to connect myself. For example, on New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula, one of the top attractions is Cathedral Cove, a dreamy beach surrounded by rocky pinnacles. But you can’t just drive right to Cathedral Cove, hop out of your car, and walk five minutes down a well-marked path. Rather, there are at least three different ways to get there by foot — all of them requiring a lengthy, moderately strenuous hike — plus there are options by taxi boat, kayak, and RIB (rigid inflatable boat) tour from a nearby beach town.
Bits and pieces of that intel was scattered across the various guidebooks I was using; the rest of the picture was filled in by some online research. Sorting through the basic question of how to get there — to this iconic location that’s on the to-do list of virtually everyone visiting the Coromandel — probably consumed at least half an hour of my precious vacation. All the while, my “guidebook author” instincts kept screaming inside of me: Why can’t one of these guidebooks come up with a section called “Getting to Cathedral Cove,” with a clear, strategically organized list rattling off my choices, with pros and cons for each?
When we write our guidebooks, our goal is to anticipate what the traveler needs to know, just before they realize they need to know it. The people who write, update, and edit Rick Steves guidebooks are travelers ourselves: We’ve been in those very situations, and we know the questions and challenges we faced as someone trying to smartly use our time. When updating our material, Rick’s top admonishment is to “live the book” — even if you’ve done this or that a dozen times before, follow the instructions laid out in the book as if it’s your first time…and then fill in any gaps you find along the way. This requires time, energy, an affection for the reader, and an affinity for problem-solving.
And that’s another hallmark of Rick Steves books: We update our books lovingly, frequently, and in person. Now, I don’t want to make any unsubstantiatable claims about other guidebook publishers. I honestly don’t know how, or how often, they update their material. But my strong suspicion is that the frequency and rigor of our update schedule far exceeds anyone else’s.
This is based mainly on feedback from the businesses we list in our guidebooks — hoteliers, restauranteurs, museum ticket-takers, and so on. On each research trip, I generate double-takes on the part of Europeans who recognize me from a previous visit, and are borderline-shocked that I’ve returned already to check things again. “You’re back!” they say as I walk in the door. “Weren’t you just here?” Then they pull me in close, dart their eyes conspiratorially, and whisper, “I haven’t seen anyone from that other guidebook in eight or nine years.”
The proof is in the pudding, and that generous, on-the-ground research really distinguishes our books. All of that travel not only ensures that our guidebooks are the most accurate and up-to-date on the market. It also feeds into all of the other features I’ve outlined here — making our books a rare breed that are created by travelers, for travelers…by traveling.
So then, why don’t we cover more of Europe? Or, for that matter, so many other places? It’s a fair question. And I’ll be honest with you: I’m number one in line suggesting a Rick Steves New Zealand guidebook.
But no matter how many times I ask, Rick will say no. And he’ll be right. He figured out a long time ago that it’s better to do one thing, and do it exceptionally, rather than expand beyond your means. We could slap the Rick Steves name on hundreds of guidebooks, ranging from Disney World and Las Vegas to Down Under…but they’d lose that personal touch. (These days, this trendy concept is called “scaling.” Rick has never used that word…but it’s been his instinctive ethos for decades.)
In the meantime, let’s compare notes on suitable alternatives for places Rick doesn’t cover. Personally, I find the big brands can be decent, but they tend to be hit-or-miss; some titles are spot-on, while others are disastrous. Often the best books are by someone (like Rick) with a tight focus and a longstanding passion. For example, Andrew Doughty’s Hawaii Revealed series is my trusted companion anytime I’m traveling to the Hawaiian Islands; they have a depth of hard-earned wisdom, and an endearingly informal personality, that make them the “next best thing” to a Rick Steves Hawaii book. On a visit to Costa Rica a few years back, I enjoyed using James Kaiser’s Costa Rica: The Complete Guide, which has a similar approach.
Moving beyond paper guidebooks, the GyPSy Guide audio driving tours — covering many national parks and other scenic drives across the US and Canada — are outstanding. I’ve followed every single one of their tours in Hawaii, and I actually get excited when I’m going somewhere new that they cover. Just like a Rick Steves book, they seem to intuit when you’re getting hungry and suggest just the right place to pull over for a sticky slice of banana bread.
Other “non-guidebook” sources I trust include Katie Parla, an American expat who offers well-researched, insightful, playfully opinionated advice about where to eat in Italy. And Rick and I have both been relying more heavily on Michelin Guide’s “recommended” or “Bib Gourmand” restaurants — less expensive and more accessible than the big-ticket “starred” choices — when looking for nice places to eat.
What about you? Any others you can suggest?
And while we’re on the topic: Am I missing anything? What makes you enjoy using the Rick Steves books? Or am I off-base on any of the above?
Speaking of fresh guidebooks, 2022 was a huge year for getting all of our books fully up-to-date after a lengthy, unplanned pandemic hiatus. Most of those brand-new editions are either available now, or coming in the next few weeks. With all the changes brought about by COVID — and the simple passage of time — it’s essential to get your hands on the newest material if you’re heading to Europe this year. You can find all of our titles in the Rick Steves Travel Store, or wherever books are sold.
From eating with the seasons to enjoying an aperitivo, from devouring a pizza in Naples to grazing the street markets of Palermo, and whether hunting for truffles or the best possible gelato, Italy boasts an abundance of ways to experience one of the world’s most beloved cuisines.
We’re celebrating the arrival of our newest book, Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers — available now. During the pandemic, I worked closely with Rick and co-author Fred Plotkin to assemble this comprehensive handbook for the traveler — teaching visitors how to fully experience the joys of eating and drinking in Italy, and to think about food the way Italians do. And now that the book is finally out, I’ve been dreaming about the many wonderful food experiences I’ve savored all across Italy. Here’s my selection of 10 amazing Italian food experiences — which, I hope, will inspire you as you plan your own travels.
Of course, this is just one traveler’s list. What are some of your favorite Italy food experiences? Share yours in the Comments.
Eating Local: Culinary Campanilismo
Recently I posted about some of the excellent foods I’ve had in Emilia-Romagna — including a bowl of what I identified as tortellini in brodo. In the Comments, a stickler called me out: “Sorry for you but these aren’t tortellini.” So I looked it up. And, sure enough, Parma (where I enjoyed this dish) has its own version of tortellini, which the parmigiani call anolini. If you lined up 100 non-Italians, at least 99 of them would be hard-pressed to explain the difference between tortellini and anolini. Does it really matter?
Yes, it does. And I was wrong.
Campanilismo is the fierce loyalty Italians feel to their immediate community… literally, the people who live within earshot of the same bell tower (campanile). And Italian cooking, too, is exactingly local.
As my wife and I explored Piedmont last September, we were struck by how similar menus were from place to place. Each dish was a piemontese specialty we’d rarely seen elsewhere. Tajarin (skinny, vivid-yellow, egg-yolk noodles) were smothered in a variety of sauces. When it comes to Castelmango cheese, with a decadent texture and a wipe-a-tear pungency, a little goes a long way. And several meals ended with bonèt, similar to a chocolate flan.
We used “eating local” as an excuse to stretch our culinary boundaries. Normally, we’d give a pass to vitello tonnato — veal with a creamy tuna-caper sauce — based on the description alone. But knowing it was a local forté, we tried two very different versions. And both were excellent.
It’s not just regions. These localized specialties often come down to the town…or even the neighborhood. In Rome’s historic Jewish Quarter, signs advertise carciofi alla giudìa — “Jewish-style” artichokes. Taking the hint, I ordered an item that looked like some crispy-crunchy alien appendage. And it was a memorable, and delicious, treat.
Don’t head to Italy with a “bucket list” of foods that you’ll demand to eat while there. Instead, let the locals tell you what they are excited to feed you
Eating with the Seasons
Italians brag that if you show them a menu from any restaurant in Italy, they can identify not only where it comes from…but what time of year. That’s because the best food is not only local — it’s highly seasonal.
Speaking of artichokes, I happened to be in Rome last March, when artichokes were absolutely everywhere: piled in neat pyramids in grocery store windows, on restaurant menus, and so on. Walking through the Testaccio Market, I saw piles upon piles of those beautiful vegetables, with their artful ombré of green and purple. It felt like the city was having one big artichoke party.
Italians know the rotating calendar of seasonal specialties, and they track those annual cycles with a special verve. On a springtime visit to Palermo’s street markets, a flurry of activity engulfed a table displaying gigantic slabs of bright-pink tuna, just caught. The fishmongers set out little sprigs of delicate spring mint, symbolizing that tuna season had begun. During the brief window when the tuna is this fresh, you eat it virtually rare — barely kissed by flame, then onto your plate.
One fall in Tuscany, the hillsides were mostly bare except for the neon-green fuzz of winter wheat. Trees were naked; bushes were brown. But on a few spindly branches dangled plump orange fruits: persimmons. One of the best dishes I had on that trip was a dessert consisting of chestnut mousse with persimmon purée. It tasted like a Tuscan autumn.
One dish my wife and I did not have on that trip to Piedmont? Truffles. Even though it’s a truffle-crazy region, we were just a dozen days or so too early to enjoy that delicacy in its prime. And so, it was notably absent from local menus.
We Americans are used to getting what we want, when we want it. But when we do that, we sacrifice quality. Recently, at my local supermarket, I bought some tomatoes and strawberries. And, because it’s winter, they tasted almost indistinguishable.
Italians have patience. They know good things are worth waiting for. And when you have an ingredient or a dish just once a year, its flavor is that much more special.
Indulging in Passeggiata, Aperitivo, and Apericena
When visiting Italy, let yourself get swept up in the passeggiata — that special hour or so each evening when the entire community does lazy laps around the city center. And as you stroll, don’t miss a parallel custom happening along the fringes of that street: the aperitivo, an after-work, pre-dinner drink enjoyed among friends. People meet up to have a cocktail, socialize, take a little break from their evening constitutional…and enjoy their beautiful cityscape.
At aperitivo time, Italians people-watch from café tables, or stand around in little clusters, engrossed in conversation. In every hand is a bright-orange glass of Aperol spritz. It’s all so…civilized.
Some bars throw in a small snack — a basket of potato chips, or a little bowl of nuts. Others lay out a delectable antipasti spread to lure in passersby. For the cost of a cocktail, you can fill up a small plate with munchies. Places with especially substantial snacks sometimes call this apericena — a pun combining aperitivo and cena (dinner). And, while it’s bad form to take this too literally and assemble a full dinner from the buffet, if you’ve had a big lunch, the snacks that come with a couple of drinks may tide you over until morning.
Cooking with the Locals
Taking a cooking class is a wonderful way to connect with Italian food culture, and to pick up a new skill. But a “cooking class” can take many different forms.
On a mist-enshrouded hilltop, a Michelin-starred chef invited visitors into his kitchen for an unforgettable lesson in olive oil, risotto, roasting meats, and, of course, making pasta. He began by rolling out sheets of pasta, then attacked each one with his knife to instantly trim it into textbook specimens of different noodles: “Papardelle,” he said, chopping thick ribbons. “Tagliatelle” — this one was thinner. “Capellini.” Thinner still. With each batch, he grabbed the wad of newborn noodles and tossed them gently in the air.
On a nearby hillside, Mamma Laura masterfully orchestrated a meal for her eager students. She’d demonstrate the task at hand — chopping up chunks of squash, packing ingredients into little pouches of cabbage, rolling out long sheets of pasta dough — then turned us loose to try it out. Ingredients would disappear into an oven or pot or blender, then reappear when it was time for the next step. Miraculously, everything was finished at exactly the right time. And it was all delicious.
At a rustic country hotel, every Thursday night is pasta-making night: All of the guests gather on the veranda, and Isabella walks everyone through how to make the local, hand-rolled pici noodles — from a little “volcano” of flour with raw eggs in the caldera to a delicious feast. Everyone gets in on the action: Grandparents and little ones all challenge each other to roll out the perfect noodle.
Because Italian chefs are more impressed by top-quality ingredients than by complicated technique, many dishes are relatively easy for beginners to replicate at home. (The hardest part can be finding those premium ingredients; once you do, the cooking is a snap.) One of the mainstays in my family’s menu planning is an outrageously delicious tomato sauce we learned from a restauranteur named Marta. It requires just a few ingredients: tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and — if you like a little kick — red pepper flakes. Each time we make it, it transports us back to some of our favorite travels. (Pssst! You can find the recipe here.)
Browsing a Palermo Street Market
Spleen sandwich? Fried-up leftovers of veal cartilage and organs? An entire tiny octopus, boiled to tender perfection in inky water?
Say what you will about these dishes…there’s no doubt they’re some of the most memorable things I’ve eaten in Italy. And I ate them all within a few hundred yards of each other, in the street markets of Palermo.
Palermo’s three sprawling street markets — Ballarò, Capo, and Vucciria — let you delve into gritty Sicilian culture. Joining a food tour (I did one with Marco from Streaty) makes the experience far more accessible, ensuring that no weird food goes untasted.
Many items here are delicious by any standard: arancina, a deep-fried ball of saffron rice and meat sauce; sfincioni, French-bread-style “Sicilian pizza,” grilled up to order; and, of course, cannoli, a crispy pastry tube that’s filled to order with luxurious ricotta.
Others put you precipitously steep on the street-food learning curve: frittula — basically the leftover parts of veal (cartilage, intestines, little bits of bone) all chopped up, griddled, and seasoned with generous salt and lemon juice; or pani ca’ meusa — a pillowy bun stuffed with spleen, lung, and other organ meat. These bites challenged my ethic of always being willing to try a local dish…once.
The best tours also teach you how to think about the market like a Sicilian. Marco prodded us to hear the echoes of Sicily’s historic connections to North Africa in the melodic sales pitches of today’s vendors, and challenged us to view vendors with slippery pricing through a lens of good-natured gamesmanship.
Best of all, the whole time you’re browsing these gut-bombs, you’re fully immersed in the energetic hubbub of Sicilian urban life — watching the palermitani greet old friends, listening to the urgent musicality of those vendors’ patter, and smelling all that sizzling and frying goodness (plus a full spectrum of other odors).
Slamming Down un Caffè While Standing at a Counter
The Italian stand-up coffee counter has a special allure. Both efficient and social, this experience comes with a practiced ritual: First, you tell the cashier what you want, and you pay. They hand you a little slip of paper that you take over to the counter, where you get the barista’s attention. Once the drink is prepared, you stand there just long enough to down it. Maybe you make conversation with your fellow patrons or the staff. And then, within a matter of minutes (maybe less)…you bid everyone a cherry Ciao, grazie! and head on your way.
This is just what the doctor ordered when you’re fresh off the plane — disoriented and jet-lagged — to jump-start that wonderful feeling of “Hey! I’m in Italy!” The experience delightfully bombards all your senses: The smell of fresh-ground coffee as you walk through the door. The sound of the hissing steamer and the glockenspeil-like clink-clink-clink of teensy spoons against teensier ceramic cups. The mesmerizing, machinelike efficiency of the baristas’ practiced motions, a conveyer belt of full and empty cups, doing their perpetual loop from espresso machine to counter to dishwasher. And, of course…the coffee itself.
This ritual is also highly satisfying at breakfast time. Last year, I made a point to skip out on my hotel’s paltry buffet to enjoy stand-up breakfasts among the Italians in Siena, Rome, Trieste, and many other places. There’s something joyful about standing still and getting caffeinated while you watch the town wake up. Instead of strolling tourists, the narrow streets are filled with delivery people pushing hand trucks.
And often, there’s a special local pastry to try. One morning in Rome, I noticed everyone was ordering the local version of a “breakfast of champions”: A cappuccino and a maritozzo (puffy brioche roll filled with whipped cream). I would never be able to stomach this sugar-bomb back home…but in Rome, it just felt right.
Eating Pizza in Naples
Even when a food is available worldwide — maybe especially in those cases — it’s a rare treat to have it in its birthplace. The first time I went to Naples, I was skeptical that the pizza would really be all that different than the myriad versions I can get in my foodie hometown. Rarely have I been so wrong! In Naples, even a basic pizza is a revelation.
I met up with a Neapolitan friend, Vincenzo, who couldn’t wait to take me to his idea of the best pizzeria in town. Choice of toppings? Psssh. Here you have just two options: marinara or Margherita. Like In-N-Out Burger back home, this pizzaiolo understands that when you achieve perfection, you keep things simple.
When the pizza hit our table, Vincenzo took a bite and rocketed into performative ecstasy. “Aha! You taste that? The perfect crust. Thin, soft, a leetle sour. You don’t even need to chew it. You just put it in your mouth and…” He pantomimed a delicious glob of pizza sliding down his esophagus, ending with a big smile.
Watching me gingerly nibble at my slice, Vincenzo said, “This is the correct way to eat pizza.” He cut out a wedge, rolled it up into a bundle, sawed off a crosswise chunk, and jammed it into his mouth. I tried it. And in one perfect bite, I got the gooey middle, the singed crust, and a squirt of tomato sauce — all in just the right proportions.
Neapolitans, you see, are pizza perfectionists. And after spending some time there, you’ll be in danger of becoming a pizza snob, too.
Hunting for Truffles (and Other Food Experiences)
Some of the most vivid food experiences in Italy don’t even involve eating — but rather, learning about where your food comes from. This can be a tour of a facility that produces Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino cheese; a walk through vineyards and wine-production facilities; or a trip to the community olive press. Or it can involve walking through the woods.
One chilly November morning in the hills of Tuscany, I met a professional truffle-hunter, Paolo, and his trusty assistant, Milli. Milli — who, it seems pertinent to note here, is a dog — skittered off into the underbrush, nose twitching, tail wagging, in hot pursuit of those mysterious deposits that hide a few inches underground.
As we chased after her, Paolo explained that you can’t actually “plant” truffes — all you can do is cultivate the land to create an ideal habitat, scatter a few spores…and hope. And then, when they truffles begin to release their unmistakable aroma, Milli does the rest. Paolo began training her when she was just 10 days old — feeding her tiny bits of truffles to develop her palate. Teaching her how to find the truffles was the easy part, he said. The hard part was getting her to stop eating them.
As if on cue, Milli began excitedly pawing a particular spot in the ground. Paolo rushed over, held her back, and used his special shovel, with a surgeon’s precision, to extract the nugget from the damp earth. As I inhaled that pungent scent, Paolo beamed and Milli flapped her tail proudly. With that mental image, truffles are even more delicious.
Finding the Very Best Gelato
On a visit to Florence, I asked my friend Virginia: What are some clues for finding the best possible gelato? I got a gelato lesson I’ll never forget. As we walked through those Renaissance streets, surveying both great gelaterie and terrible ones, Virginia offered some tips:
“You want a place that makes all of their gelato fresh, on the premises, ideally that same day. That’s why you should look for words like artigianale — artisanal; or fatto in casa — homemade.”
She warned me to avoid big mountains of brightly hued gelato, which is designed to attract children. The best has muted colors — ones that occur in nature — and is often kept in stainless-steel covered tubs, until someone orders it.
Pausing at a promising-looking place, Virginia — quite strategically — asked to sample the pistachio. She explained: “Did you ever notice that every gelato flavor costs the same to buy? But, of course, they cost different to produce. And the most expensive flavor to do properly, using real nuts, is pistachio. If the pistachio is good, it’s a sign that the gelateria owner is committed to making quality gelato over profits.” This place had a tasty pistachio…and, sure enough, top-quality gelato.
This experience reminded me that the more you know about something, the better you’re able to appreciate it.
Having a Zero-Kilometer Meal
We’ve already seen how Italians are locavores. For the ultimate expression of this ethic, seek out a zero-kilometer meal: one where all of the ingredients originate from less than a kilometer away. This experience takes “farm-to-table” to painstaking extremes.
At Santa Giulia farm, about an hour south of Siena, I joined Gianluca Terzuoli and his wife, Kae, for such a meal. After walking through the hut where Gianluca air-dries his prosciutto, we sat down for our zero-kilometer feast. As we sampled Brunello di Montalcino wine and bread drizzled with olive oil, Gianluca gestured to the neat rows of vines and the gnarled trees where he harvested the grapes and olives. (Forget “kilometer” — these are centimeters apart.)
Then came the prosciutto and salami, made with the meat of free-range pigs. When I popped a delicate slice into my mouth, it washed my palate with salt-and-umami flavor, then gradually vaporized on my tongue. Also on the table was pecorino, made with the milk of ewes that I could hear bleating in the distance.
When I pressed Gianluca on the point of whether it’s all truly from right here, he sheepishly waved a hand toward the woods and said, “Well, the pigs free-range over there…500 meters away.” “Yes, but that’s still within a kilometer,” I pointed out. Gianluca beamed in agreement.
“When you eat this food, you want to really taste the animal,” Gianluca says. This old Italian saying translates awkwardly, but it contains great wisdom: You know that ingredients — whether prosciutto or pecorino — are top-quality when the flavors linger on your palate. Processed prosciutto and pecorino are overly salted as a preservative and to boost the flavor; the faint flavors are immediately washed away. Quality goods like Gianluca’s linger on your taste buds for a long, long time.
Thanks for joining me on this brief culinary tour of Italy. What are some of your top Italian food and wine experiences?
And for more travel tales about great food, consider picking up my memoir, The Temporary European: Lessons and Confessions of a Professional Traveler. Inside you’ll find expanded versions of my stories about grazing at a Palermo street market, learning from Virginia about how to find the best gelato, hand-rolling pici pasta with Isabella, and much more.
I spent much of 2022 traveling all over Europe, tracking the many changes as I updated our guidebooks. Some of the biggest came in Croatia — in fact, starting today!
Croatia joined the European Union back in 2013. Europe wonks (my people) know that EU membership is a multi-phased proposition…which is why some countries, who’ve been in the EU for nearly 20 years, still don’t use the euro.
A decade after becoming an EU member, Croatia just hit two huge benchmarks at the same time: As of January 1, 2023, Croatia no longer uses its traditional currency, the kuna. And it has joined the Schengen open-borders zone — meaning no more stopping as you drive between Croatia and Slovenia or Hungary.
Goodbye, Kuna…Hello, Euro!
The arrival of the euro is a particularly big deal for the day-to-day lives of the Croatians (and their visitors). Traveling in Croatia just a few weeks ago, I sensed that many Croatians were still in denial about the new currency. For years, they’ve stubbornly stuck with their kuna against a rising tide of international tourism. It’s become a defiant, knee-jerk, almost patriotic sentiment: Euros are, adamantly, not the legal tender. Even in October, I still saw “No Euro, Only Kuna!” signs taped to cash registers.
When I’d ask Croatians about the upcoming change, the answer seemed to be unanimous: “We’re worried.” Over the last few years, they’ve already seen prices rise dramatically — not just for “tourist things,” but also for everyday groceries, fuel, and so on. Some of this has simply a byproduct of greater societal affluence. And maybe just a bit of it is tourist price-gouging that’s gotten out of hand, and blown back on locals.
Not to mention, there’s a huge amount of anxiety about winter heating expenses throughout Europe, where many places are reliant upon Russian fuel. “Standing up to Putin” and his invasion of Ukraine — which most agree is the correct course of action — comes at a very high cost, literally, in the form of very expensive energy prices.
On top of all that, Croatia now also faces the switch to a new currency. And when other countries have adopted to the euro — going all the way back to when it first appeared, in 2002 — it has often come with a big jump in prices.
Italians love to relive the drama of January 1, 2002. I’ve heard this story told perhaps a dozen times in the two decades since, all over Italy: “An espresso used to cost 1,000 lire. That should be about 50 euro cents. But when the euro came, it jumped all the way on one whole euro! Overnight, EVERYTHING COST DOUBLE!” (And it’s at this point that my Italian interlocutor, red-faced, always begins waving their arms.)
The “EVERYTHING COST DOUBLE!” espresso example is, obviously, drastically overstated. But it contains a kernel of truth, which is that if there’s ever a time to goose prices, it’s when you’re switching currencies…so people are less likely to notice. (Or, in some cases, will very much notice, and then still be complaining about it a quarter-century later.)
To combat this fear, there’s been much talk in Croatia about the “ethical transition” to the euro; authorities strongly recommend (but do not enforce) keeping prices equal. At a minimum, for the first year, companies are required to list their prices in both euros and kunas. That will not prevent price hikes, but it will make them more transparent.
One of my Croatian friends uses an informal “ice cream barometer” to track the dual impact of inflation and the euro. She explains that, before the COVID pandemic, most ice cream shops charged 8 kunas (€1.06) per scoop, or maybe 10 kunas (€1.32) for “premium” flavors. By 2022 — post-COVID, and with inflation booming — that 12 kuna price point had become standard even at the most basic places, with fancier shops charging closer to 15 kunas (€1.98). Many Croatians gravely speculate that €2 will simply become the default per-scoop price after the euro transition, with fancier places pushing the €2.50 or even €3 barrier. This may not seem like such a high price, but when compared to 2019, that would represent an 89 percent increase for a standard cone…in less than four years.
Selfishly, all of the unknowns about the euro transition really complicated my guidebook-updating work. I collected my information in Croatia back in October; we’re just about to send those files off to our publisher for printing, a little too late for a comprehensive double-check on the new prices. My only option was to get the updated prices in kunas for 2022…then immediately have to estimate what it should be in euros for 2023. (Legally, businesses were supposed to list the euro price next to the kuna price, using the official exchange rate: one euro equals, and will always equal, 7.53450 kunas. However, this is one of the most-ignored rules in all of Croatia.)
So, when updating my book, let’s say I was quoted the price of 55 kunas for an intercity bus ticket. Officially, that’s exactly €7.29975. So I guess they’ll round that up to €7.30?
Actually…almost certainly not. More likely, it’ll round up to €7.50 next year. Or — who knows? — €8. Or maybe they’ll get greedy and make the jump to €10.
Only time will tell what this change does to Croatian prices. For my part, I’m rounding up fairly aggressively as a “best guess” for our 2023 edition. I’ve already started double-checking some key prices for 2023 in euros (where they’re available), and sure enough, most places are not doing a one-to-one conversion; things are going up 10, 15, even 20 percent.
While this is stressful, I find that older Croatians — who have lived through more change in their lives than we Americans could possibly imagine — are taking it all in stride. “Meh, it’s hardly the first time I changed currencies,” one local said to me, referring to the Yugoslav dinar, then the Croatian dinar.
One thing I won’t miss about the demise of the kuna: the whacko exchange rate. After two decades of dividing every price by seven in my head, I’ll be relieved for my next visit to Croatia to require less arithmetic.
Rating Croatia’s Euro Coins
Another consequence of this change is that Croatia will be minting a fresh new batch of euro coins, with proudly Croatian designs on one side. This is big news for coin collectors, or for anyone who enjoys checking their change anytime they’re in Europe to see if any Estonias, Greeces, or Slovakias have slipped in among the Italys and Germanys.
Here’s my critique (as a “Croatia insider”) of where they landed with those new coin designs, which are rolling out today. Keep in mind that in Croatia, things tend to get complicated…and there’s often more to the story than what’s on the surface.
Two-Euro Coin: Croatia
The two-euro coin is sharp and logical: It’s simply a map of the country, with its checkerboard flag and the name in the local language: HRVATSKA. It’s a bit rare to have a map on a euro coin (Estonia is the only one I can think of), but I imagine the Croatians see this as an opportunity to do a little educating within the European community. Also, it’s hard to deny that Croatia’s swooping, angular boomerang, with all those little islands scattered offshore, is one of the most bitchin’ European shapes.
One-Euro Coin: The Kuna
I was hoping we wouldn’t entirely lose the “kuna” theme with this change. So I was relieved to see that the one-euro coin features the kuna prominently.
Croatia has one of the most interesting “origin stories” for its former national currency, which is both cute…and a bit sinister. A kuna is a marten — a foxlike animal whose pelts were a valuable trade commodity in olden times. (It also honors Croatia’s respect for the natural world.) And the stylized kuna design they’ve chosen for their euros is particularly adorable.
But there’s a dark underbelly to the kuna: During World War II, Croatia was a Nazi puppet state ruled by a local fascist movement called the Ustaše. This was the first time since about the 11th century that Croatia was ostensibly “independent” — and it was the Ustaše who first designed the kuna as their currency. A half-century later, when Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia, they harkened back to some of those earlier symbols of “independence” (read: Ustaše times)…including the kuna. This was a provocative act to the many Serbs living in breakaway Croatia, whose ancestors were victims of the Ustaše.
My sense is that most of this is water under the bridge. Over the last three decades, the kuna has been rehabilitated as a symbol of present-day, truly independent, democratic, (mostly) non-fascist Croatia. It’s understandable that they would want to preserve that symbol of their modern nation. Still, for those who know its full history, it’s just a smidge problematic. (Ah, but who can resist that cutie-pie kuna?)
10, 20, and 50 Cents: Nikola Tesla
It’s with these coins that Croatia’s choice is far more provocative than the casual tourist might realize.
There’s no argument whether the great scientist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a brilliant mind. There is, however, some disagreement as to whether he was “Croatian.”
Tesla was born in the village of Simljan, which at the time was part of the Austrian Empire, and today is part of Croatia. And, in fact, Tesla was a Serb. A “Croatian Serb”…but a Serb. His parents were ethnic Serbs. His father was an Orthodox priest. His Wikipedia page describes him as a “Serbian-American inventor.” And if you go to Belgrade, you’ll see that the Serbs are very proud of, ahem, their great inventor.
You could make a case that Austria has as much right to put Tesla on their coins as Croatia does — since when he was born, his birthplace was part of Austria. But that would be a little preposterous, right?
I appreciate the impulse to honor Tesla. But make no mistake: by choosing to “honor” Tesla on its euros, Croatia is also trying to stake claim to his legacy…at the expense of the Serbs. And what better propaganda for convincing Europe Tesla is “Croatian” than putting his image, with the word HRVATSKA, on coins that will be jangling in hundreds of millions of pockets from Tallinn to Lisbon, and from Palermo to Dublin?
Hmmm…
1, 2, and 5 Cents: Glagolitic Alphabet
Finally we come to the little “coppers.” Here Croatia has opted for characters from the Glagolitic alphabet — specifically H and R, for “Hrvatska.” I love this choice, because it’s exactly what a wonky Croatia geek would go with.
What is the Glagolitic alphabet? OK, this is pretty dense stuff, so before your eyes glaze over, I’ll just give a quick, oversimplified recap: Way back in the ninth century (no, seriously! stick with me!), the Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Method came to the realm of the Slavs to convert the people to Christianity. They invented an alphabet, Glagolitic, to translate the Bible into the local Slavic language. Glagolitic eventually mingled with the Roman (our) and Greek alphabets to become the Cyrillic alphabet, which is still used throughout Eastern Europe — Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, and so on.
The original Glagolitic alphabet gradually disappeared, except in some corners of Croatia. And when Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, they reached back to this chapter of their history and revived interest in Glagolitic as, in a sense, Croatia’s “own” alphabet. (In those heady days, there was even a very short-lived movement to adopt Glagolitic as the official alphabet of modern Croatian. Fortunately for all but the most ardent historians, this never went anywhere.)
So, while — like virtually all of their other coins — the use of Glagolitic characters evokes (to those who know the full history) Croatia’s separation from Serbia in the 1990s, I think it’s a fitting, and undeniably educational, choice for the little euro coins.
Looking back at all of these choices, I’m impressed by how much complex symbolism has gone into these selections. Some of them are a tinge nationalistic for my tastes. Of course, many countries have opted for national symbols on their coins, from Dante and Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man for Italy; to Germany’s stoic, angular eagle; to Slovenia’s beloved Mount Triglav. Most are not quite so packed with provocative subtext…or maybe they are, and I just don’t realize it. But in the end, this is Croatia’s choice, and this is what they’ve chosen.
What do you think of Croatia’s euros?
Open Borders and a New Bridge
The other big news as of January 1, 2023, is Croatia’s membership in the Schengen open-borders zone. For travelers, this means you won’t need to stop when crossing a border between Croatia and its fellow Schengen countries, such as Slovenia and Hungary. (And, for those who spend a LOT of time in Europe — like some of my colleagues — it also means that you can’t take a little vacation in Croatia to “reset” your clock of 90 days out of every 180 that you’re allowed visa-free in the Schengen zone.)
However, you’ll still have to stop and show your passport at borders with non-Schengen countries, including Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro (which are both popular side-trips from the Dalmatian Coast). There was already a potential for long lines at some of these borders, as people day-tripping from Dubrovnik to Mostar or the Bay of Kotor all tend to show up there around the same time each morning…and then again each afternoon, on the way home.
This will, potentially, be even more of an issue in 2023, especially early on, as those borders are also now the outer borders of Schengen.
When I asked locals about this, I got a variety of answers. Some pointed out that Croatia has already been essentially Schengen-compliant for years now, to earn the right to join — so this may not be such a big change. (Not to mention, there’s a lot of money flowing over those borders, which neither country wants to hamper.) Others say that, given how bureaucratic Croatia tends to be, they’re not so convinced it will be seamless. On average, the answer to the question of “How will Croatia joining Schengen affect its border crossings?” is the favorite Croatian response to any and every question: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There is one piece of optimistic news, for those who don’t like waiting at borders. In July of 2022, Croatia circumvented a centuries-long loophole that gave neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina control over a short five-and-a-half-mile stretch of coastline just north of Dubrovnik. For years, traffic on the main intercity highway through Dalmatia would get clogged up as each vehicle had to enter, then exit, the Bosnian town of Neum.
After decades of lofty promises, deliberations, and false starts, in 2019 the European Union provided funding to build a new bridge connecting the base of the Pelješac Peninsula to the coastline north of Neum — allowing the main road to entirely bypass Bosnia. The 1.5-mile-long Pelješac Bridge cost $500 million, 85 percent of which came from the EU. It was built mostly during the COVID-19 pandemic by a Chinese construction company, which imported workers from China to complete the project on budget and ahead of schedule.
When the first cars rolled across the Pelješac Bridge in July of 2022, it was seen as a victory for Croatian unity. But questions linger. The Bosnians who eke out a living around Neum are understandably less enthusiastic about the bridge, which turned their little resort into a veritable ghost town. Environmentalists worry about the impact the bridge may have on the delicate ecosystem of the Bay of Mali Ston, where lucrative shellfish farms depend upon just-right conditions to thrive. Ston, Mali Ston, and wineries in the Ponikve area — once off the beaten path — are seeing a surge of new visitors. But the main change is something you’ll notice only if you traveled here in pre-bridge days: It’s simply much faster now to get from Dubrovnik and Pelješac to anywhere else in Croatia.
That’s a lot of changes for one day, in one little country. But if you’re headed to Croatia in 2023, these are all great to know about.
In 2022, as travel resumed, I made it back to lots of famous places: London, Rome, Amsterdam, Dubrovnik. The Matterhorn, the Scottish Highlands, the hill towns of Tuscany. But, as usual, many of my favorite experiences came in lesser-known corners of Europe — underappreciated places that exceed expectations when it comes to creating beautiful memories.
As a refresher: My annual “Discoveries” list is one traveler’s arbitrary rundown of places I’ve been to recently (mainly in 2022) that may not already appear on many itineraries. These are just ten of the hundreds of such places, all over Europe — meant not as any sort of definitive “best of” list, but simply to inspire you to go beyond the Londons, Parises, and Romes when planning your 2023 travels. In fact, I’d love it if you shared your own favorite finds in the comments.
And if you’d like to see previous years’ lists, here are the Discoveries for 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 — all still great choices. (I skipped the Discoveries in 2022…not wanting to jinx what, a year ago, felt like a tenuous time to travel.)
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Imagine a bustling city in a stunning setting — tucked in the deep valley of a gurgling river, surrounded by green hills. It has a dynamic history as a crossroads of civilizations, where you can visit a Catholic church, an Eastern Orthodox church, a mosque, and a synagogue, all within a couple of blocks. One part of town feels like a Turkish bazaar, with riverstone cobbles underfoot, the sound of tapping coppersmith hammers, the smell of sweet hookah smoke, and the haze of grilling meat hanging heavy in the air. And then, just a few steps away, you enter a tidy Habsburg street plan with proud turn-of-the-century architecture, parks, and boulevards.
This city also has a delicious culinary tradition of delectably seasoned meats, decadently spreadable cheeses, and crispy savory pastries cooked under a metal baking lid covered with hot coals…not to mention unfiltered coffee and honey-soaked treats (think baklava). Oh, and the locals are incredibly welcoming, easygoing, and quick to befriend visitors, and they have fascinating life stories to share.
Now imagine that this place has next to no American tourists.
This is not a fantasy; it’s Sarajevo. With each return visit, I simply can’t fathom why so few travelers have discovered what may well be the most underrated capital city in Europe.
Returning this fall, I discovered a new hole-in-the-wall shop on the main drag that specializes in just one perfect dish: First, they pull a puffy lepinje flatbread pocket straight out of the oven. Then they slather it with the soft cheese kajmak, which begins to melt and fill in all the little grooves. You can pay a bit extra to stuff it with flavorful smoked beef…a delicious mobile feast. Walking down the street, munching one of my favorite meals of the trip (if not the year), it occurred to me that, on top of everything else, Sarajevo might be one of the best “street foodie” destinations in Europe.
Sarajevo has a new fancy hotel downtown, and it recently opened a cable car that trundles visitors to the mountaintop high above town for sweeping views. Those are nice upgrades, but they’re just gilding the lily of what’s already one of travel’s great cities. Someday Sarajevo will start to get the attention it deserves. But in the meantime, it’s cheap, uncrowded, and endlessly rewarding.
Richmond, London, England
During the dark days of the pandemic, like a lot of people, I took solace in binge-watching TV. One of the shows I found most uplifting was Ted Lasso, the story of an insistently upbeat American football coach transplanted to the UK to manage a soccer squad. Richmond may not be a real team, but it absolutely is a real place — a sleepy bedroom community just outside London. And on a sunny weekend in February, I went to Richmond on a lark, just to see if I recognized anything from the show. Sure enough, I found myself standing on that adorable, perfectly British square, with a pair of red telephone boxes; a classic half-timbered pub with sturdy picnic tables out front; narrow, shop-lined alleys leading every which way; and facing an expansive green packed with people out for a stroll. During the pandemic, when I closed my eyes and dreamt of being back in Britain…this was the place I imagined.
It was a small thrill to find the door to “Ted’s apartment,” and to step into his local pub. But if I’m being honest, I quickly forgot all about that fictional world…and enjoyed exploring the real one. One of my all-time favorite moments of 2022 was simply sitting on a bench at Richmond Green, watching dogs chase tennis balls.
For me, Richmond illustrates two things: First, Britain has hundreds of charming little communities that are worth poking around for an hour or two. This one just happens to star on a TV show. And second, I just love it when I go someplace for some random reason — in this case, because I saw it onscreen — and wind up loving it for its own sake. So on your next trip, make a point to find “your” Richmond… whether or not it’s actually Richmond.
Upper Engadine and Nearby Scenic Rail Lines, Switzerland
To be clear: I’m not saying that the Upper Engadine is somehow better than, say, the Berner Oberland, or Zermatt and the Matterhorn. But this remote, rugged corner of Graubünden, in the southeast corner of Switzerland, was perhaps the biggest (and nicest) surprise of my late-summer guidebook research trip. The most famous place here is the glitzy, soulless, skippable resort of St. Moritz. Instead, stay in nearby Pontresina and have a grand ol’ time riding lifts to lofty panoramic perches (Piz Nair, Muottas Muragl, Alp Languard) and exploring stony traditional villages (like Samedan).
The Upper Engadine’s other claim to fame is its position at the intersection of two world-famous scenic rail journeys, the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express. I did both of those trips, too. And if I’m being honest, eight-plus hours — even a super-scenic train — is a lot. Here’s a pro tip: Based in Pontresina, you could do only the very best bits of both journeys, a couple of hours in each direction, then come right back home. This efficient approach lets you conquer two of the most astonishing high-alpine rail lines in the world, each a feat of late-19th-century engineering: the Bernina Pass (to the south, toward Italy) or the Albula Pass (north, toward Chur). With stone bridges that soar hundreds of feet above yawning valleys, ingenious circular viaducts that loop 360 degrees to dispense with the need for cogwheels, and peek-a-boo views of snowcapped, 14,000-foot peaks and receding glaciers, Pontresina gives you easy access to what may be the most stunning train trips in Europe, mile per mile.
As a bonus, for those on a tight budget, most Upper Engadine accommodations provide a sightseeing card that covers all local transport — including those thrilling (but pricey) mountain lifts. This basically doubles the value of what you pay for your lodgings (but make sure they include it before you book). Maybe this is yet another reason why most of my fellow hikers were active Swiss retirees rather than the Insta-glam jet set.
The Jordaan, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
In the middle of an intense, seven-week trip of tour guiding and guidebook research, I had a three-day weekend to relax and recover. The place I chose was Amsterdam — and specifically, the Jordaan, a residential neighborhood of tidy grid-planned blocks, traditional skinny houses, funky shops, and local restaurants. I found the perfect apartment, in the attic of a family home — with crooked, creaking funhouse floors and dramatically angled rafters. To reach my room, I had to climb two staircases so steep they were practically ladders. And when I opened the window and saw a pair of bikes brrrring-brrrring-ing past on the idyllic street scene below, I knew I’d found the perfect getaway.
One morning, I woke up to discover an utterly delightful weekend street market (two of them, actually) sprawling through the lanes and squares near my apartment. Another time I rode a tram to Vondelpark and rented a bike to pedal with the Amsterdammers in a lush, green oasis. On several occasions, I window-shopped the delightful nearby restaurant streets (with the even-more-delightful names Eerste Anjeliersdwarsstraat and Tweede Anjeliersdwarsstraat) and took my pick from the incredible variety of places to eat.
One thing I did not do, a single time, on this visit to Amsterdam? Complain about the touristy crowds. Because the Jordaan let me avoid them entirely.
Trieste, Italy
The Italian port city of Trieste has an identity crisis like no place else. Today it’s part of Italy — but just barely, connected by an umbilical cord of land just wide enough for a railroad and a highway. It’s almost entirely surrounded by Slovenia, whose parched karstic cliffs rise up like a stone curtain just behind the city. Complicating matters, most of today’s Trieste was built not by Italians or Slovenes, but by Austrians and Hungarians, who transformed this humble settlement into their primary trade port and shipbuilding center…with grandiose buildings that would feel more at home on Vienna’s Ringstrasse or Budapest’s Andrássy út, rather than a few steps from Adriatic embankments. This is the kind of place where you need a conspiracy-type diagram, with red yarn crisscrossing thumbtacked photos and maps, just to figure out who controlled it, and who lived here, and when, and why.
And yet, all of that complexity melts away when you actually set foot here. Trieste is hard to characterize, but the main thing is that it’s simply lovely: a grand, imperial-feeling city with a sunny seafront embankment, shot through with faded elegance (from fin-de-siècle coffee houses to aristocratic villas), and with more than its share of fascinating history. Choosing between Austrian pork cutlets, Italian pastas, and Slovenian jota (turnip stew) and potica nut-roll cakes on the same menu, you know you’re at a nexus of history. As someone with a passion for Habsburg history, for Slovenia, and for Italy, I knew I’d find Trieste interesting. But I wasn’t prepared to enjoy it as much as I did.
Side-note: I’m not entirely sure whether I went to Trieste because I read Jan Morris’ riveting Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, or if I read her book because I was going to Trieste — but either way, it reminded me how “bringing along” a great author or historian with you, on any trip, immeasurably deepens your appreciation of a place. And Trieste is a twofer, since James Joyce lived here while writing most of Ulysses (as documented in a lovable local museum). This is fitting, when you consider how a cacophony of languages and cultures fills the streets of Trieste — just like in the pages of that masterpiece.
I owe this — and my general good feelings about the city — to the Glaswegians. They’re kind and generally good-natured, but also wicked-smart and fiendishly funny. They have a penchant for knocking important city leaders down a peg by crowning their statues with orange traffic cones. The city has some of the most beautiful, most wildly creative, most satirically incisive street art I’ve seen anywhere.
As an indication of how endearingly salt-of-the-earth Glasgow is, its single best museum (in a city with lots of great ones) may just be the old tenement house whose resident moved out in 1975 after not having changed a thing in five decades — and they’ve left it perfectly preserved to this day, a fascinating time warp of midcentury, middle-class lifestyles.
Sure, the city center lacks the Old World romance of Edinburgh. (It reminds me of Cincinnati or Indianapolis, with fewer high-rises, more interesting architecture, and an infinitely more entertaining accent.) But I’m drawn to the West End, the posh yet hip residential district that’s a short bus, subway, or taxi ride away. Surrounding the U. of Glasgow campus are green parklands, lively traditional music pubs, and cozy streets lined with endlessly browsable restaurants and shops. On this visit, stepping off the subway, I bumped into a fascinating mural celebrating the many different people who call this corner of Scotland home. Mesmerized, I couldn’t pull myself away for about 15 minutes.
The next time I wind up getting stuck in Europe…I hope it’s in a place as nice, and as engaging, as Glasgow.
Pelješac Wine Country, Dalmatian Coast, Croatia
The Pelješac (PELL-yeh-shawts) Peninsula is a long, skinny spit of land poking out into the Adriatic Sea just north of Dubrovnik, on Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast. It’s always been an off-the-beaten-path destination for wine lovers who’ve done their homework. But in 2022, Pelješac came closer to the mainstream overnight, when they finally opened a brand-new bridge that routes most traffic right along its base.
In October, I spent a fun and fascinating day with a local wine expert (Sasha Lušić, who runs the D’Vino Wine Bar in Dubrovnik) to get my guidebook coverage up to snuff for the coming onslaught of visitors. We visited Ston to ogle its beefy fortifications and vast salt pans; we pulled over along a sleepy bay to slurp fresh oysters, pulled straight from the Adriatic, and washed down with a local sparkling white wine; and, best of all, we dropped in on a half-dozen different wineries, lovingly handpicked by Sasha.
I was especially charmed by Anto Grgurević, who holds advanced degrees in viniculture. Anto is determined to combine academic research with hands-on sweat equity to advance the art of Croatian winemaking. He has reintroduced some classic traditional vines — once used extensively here, but long since forgotten — even as he experiments with doing old things in new ways. (He’s the first in the region to make an amber wine, using a naturally occurring “albino” grape.)
After our tasting, Anto said “Follow me,” hopped in his car, and drove us deep into the peninsula’s interior to his family’s vineyard. Donning a comically large sombrero to shield himself from the glaring sun (good for the grapes, less so for the eyes), he walked us through the vines, pointing out the different types of grapes here and there, each matched perfectly to the precise microclimate of that patch of land.
Looking out over the hillsides where his ancestors toiled, Anto grew philosophical. “I’ve only got about 25 vintages in my life,” he said. “That really only gives me a few years to experiment and figure out how to make the best possible wine. Then I’ll spend the rest of my life cranking it out.”
Then he said, with a wink: “The best vines, you plant for your kids and your grandkids.”
Oh, and the wines? The wines are sensational.
Toruń, Poland
This gorgeous, red-brick town — cute as a fairy tale, and famous for its gingerbread and for native son Nicholas Copernicus — has always been a personal favorite. But I’ve always suspected my affinity for Toruń was somehow idiosyncratic, because I almost never see (non-Polish) travelers here.
Then, this May, I headed up a team of Polish guides to lead the first-ever departure of our new Rick Steves Best of Poland tour…and I’ll be darned if every single person in our group didn’t utterly fall in love with Toruń, too. The next morning, as we were pulling out from our one-night stay, there was practically a mutiny on the bus to call off the rest of our itinerary and just stick around Toruń.
Toruń has no world-class sights. There aren’t many, if any, museums or churches worth entering. But I’ve rarely been to a place that’s more delightfully strollable. It has cozy red-brick buildings, grand interlocking squares, broad traffic-free promenades, stately churches with prickly spires…and the whole city smells like gingerbread.
After our hands-on gingerbread-making demonstration, we oriented our group for their free evening. Our best advice: “Just walk down this street until you run out of pretty things to look at. Then come back.” A couple of hours later, I followed my own advice and went for a twilight stroll. Reaching the far end of the Old Town, I heard a raucous echo through an otherwise empty square…and followed that noise to an outdoor restaurant where about half of our tour group was having their favorite meal of the trip.
And that’s the kind of place Toruń is: Not much to see. Not much to do. But a wonderful place to simply be.
Modena and Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Italian food is, of course, delicious. But what if I told you there was a place in Italy that Italians — from the scalps of the Alps to the toe of the “boot” — unanimously agree has the best food anywhere?
Back in 2021, I spent much of the year putting together an ambitious project: a brand-new, full-color, region-by-region handbook to Italian cuisine called Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers (which just hit bookshelves everywhere). One of the hazards of that project was that our co-author, renowned Italian food expert Fred Plotkin, makes foodies like me desperately want to visit every corner of Italy.
In particular, I got caught up in Fred’s enthusiasm for the region of Emilia-Romagna. This is where you find some of the most quintessentially delicious Italian foods: luxurious pastas, especially filled ones; some of Italy’s top salumi, from mortadella to prosciutto di Parma; and, of course aceto balsamico tradizionale and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese — don’t you dare call them “balsamic vinegar” or “parmesan.”
After months of salivating at my desk, I just had to see this place for myself. So when my wife and I finally returned to Europe in the fall of 2021, we included a couple of days in Emilia-Romagna. We had world-class meals in Bologna, Parma, and Ferrara, and we spent two nights in Modena. The food was, if possible, even better than promised. The tortellini in brodo at that sidewalk café in Parma immediately shot to the top of our “best pastas ever” list, even as it redefined what pasta could be.
But we also adored the livable cities, which combined a certain elegance with a user-friendly unfussiness. And Modena in particular got under our skin, as the perfect home base. There are no important sights in town; to be honest, I never set foot in a museum or church. But we never tired of exploring its streets and squares.
And, of course, Modena also provided many memorable meals. One Sunday evening, I kept striking out when my first through fifth choices for dinner were closed. My “last resort” — a desperation play — wound up providing me with one of my best meals of the trip.
That’s Modena…and Emilia-Romanga. It’s no wonder that Tuscans, Romans, Lombards, and Sicilians all love to eat here.
Stopping to Listen to the Church Bells…Anywhere
Looking back on 2022, this was a year when I simply enjoyed being back in Europe — anywhere, doing anything, often doing nothing at all. During those two long years stuck at home, I had plenty of time to reflect on what I love best about travel — especially as I was assembling my travel memoir, The Temporary European. In that book, I explain the conclusion I reached: The best experiences in Europe are, so often, not the big sights and famous attractions. Rather, they are those precious moments in between that stick with you long after you’ve returned home.
I present this in terms of “stopping to listen to the church bells” — no matter how busy you are. But it can take many other forms. Maybe it’s sitting on a park bench on Richmond Green, watching people and their dogs enjoy a sunny day. Chatting with a Croatian vintner about his ancestral responsibility and his contemporary passion. Doing a little “street grazing” in Sarajevo. Getting lost in the heavenly gingerbread allure of Toruń. Browsing an Amsterdam street market.
Where are you going in 2023? It doesn’t matter. Go where you like. But when you get there, don’t spend your time racing from place to place, adhering to an ambitious itinerary. Make a point to stop — literally stand still — and, even if for just a moment, take it all in. Notice the little details of everyday life you’ve always missed. Eavesdrop on conversations…and if you have something to add, interject. Imagine what it might be like to actually live in that place. And if you hear the church bells chime…listen.
Where are you headed in 2023? Any favorite discoveries from 2022 you’d like to share?
If you enjoyed this list, and would like to browse some others, check out my Discoveries for 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Most of my travels in 2022 were to update our Rick Steves guidebooks. Many of those new, fully-updated-post-COVID editions (including Italy, London, Scotland, and many more) are now available at our Rick Steves Travel Store; the rest are coming soon in 2023.
If you enjoy these stories, check out my travel memoir, The Temporary European: Lessons and Confessions of a Professional Traveler. You can find it at your favorite local bookstore, online at the Rick Steves Travel Store, or as an e-book (such as the Kindle edition).
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 Travelercame 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.
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?)
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.
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 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.
