Here you can browse through my blog posts prior to February 2022. Currently I'm sharing my travel experiences, candid opinions, and what's on my mind solely on my Facebook page. — Rick
Jim Dever and his TV crew from Seattle’s KING 5 dropped by the other day and put together a fun little “Rick loves his hometown” story that I thought you might enjoy. Here’s to having a nice place to come home to after a great trip! Enjoy this peek at Edmonds, Washington — my hometown.
(When I get home from a trip overseas, I love a nice “two eggs any style” breakfast at our local diner. Where is home for you and what’s your homecoming ritual?)
I’ve learned from my own school of hard knocks that life is too short to work with people you don’t enjoy. I want to work hard, collaborate with great talent, and have fun in the process. And I’ve found that, from a practical point of view, if you’re not having fun when producing a travel show…the actual show will suffer.
Here’s a peek at some of the laughs we shared while filming Season 9 of Rick Steves’ Europe. You’ll see me getting photobombed by an Italian, sucking in my gut, begging a Romanian local for brandy, napping in a hammock, almost mastering the dramatic pause, having a staring contest with the camera, and laughing more than I speak.
Watching this, I’m thankful to everyone behind the scenes who makes this work both gratifying and enjoyable. And I’m thankful to you for traveling — and laughing — along with us.
Yesterday, I shared a page from the original manuscript of my first guidebook. And today, I thought you might enjoy a peek at my first website. Here’s how ricksteves.com looked when it went live in 1996. It’s funny how much things change — and how much they stay the same. Our AOL email address is long gone, but we’re still working to help you make the most out of every mile, minute, and dollar on your next European adventure.
In 1979, a little battle was waging in my mind: Should I build a log cabin or write a travel book? I had the wooded lot in the Cascade Mountains, had picked the spot for the cabin, and took a log-cabin building class. I even had a line on the trailer I’d live in while constructing the cabin. But when the reality of peeling and aging logs set in, the competing big project — writing a travel book — won out.
Here’s a peek at the original manuscript of my first guidebook. I wrote it by simply writing out my lectures. (As you can see, I have always been evangelical about packing light!) I sweet-talked my girlfriend into typing it on a rented IBM Selectric, and my college roommate sketched the illustrations with a ball-point pen. Corrections were typed, carefully cut out, and glue-sticked onto the pages. Then I drove the precious bundle of pages to Snohomish Publishing, and — on my 25th birthday — returned to pick up 2,500 bound copies of the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door.
Click to enlarge.
I was so green, I didn’t know to put on an ISBN. And the cover was so simple, people in the media thought the finished product was a pre-publication edition. But it sold. What a long, strange trip it’s been since then!
The first edition of Europe Through the Back Door.
I recently received an email from my friend (and retired Rick Steves Tours Sales Manager), Deanna Woodruff. She was writing from a Washington Huskies football game, where she had just seen me up on the jumbotron. It turns out that the Huskies are still sharing a fun little ad that BECU put together in 2011. In the clip, some of my favorite University of Washington alums sing a rousing fight song chorus — while I put my hot air to good use on a sousaphone.
https://youtu.be/CsAU2-CtIL4
It was actually my love of the sousaphone that first brought me to the UW: I transferred from the University of Puget Sound because I wanted to play with the top-notch Husky Marching Band. It was a real thrill to be able to show my purple-and-gold spirit again. Go Huskies!
Here I am (on the far-left) in 1972, tooting away on my sousaphone in our high school German oompah band.
