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Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

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

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Experience Is Good Travel

Every time I huddle with my guides, exploring ways to improve Rick Steves Europe Tours, our goal is the same: “How do we maximize the experience?” There are many clever ways to pack each day with lifelong memories and cultural lessons. While standard-issue tour guides often don’t go beyond the basic sightseeing schedule, a Rick Steves guide is constantly finding creative ways to carbonate the experience with fun little extras.

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So many towns in Europe have classic carousels on their main squares. Why not buy tickets for the gang and enjoy a chance to be kids again…and another rich travel memory.

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A good guide steers tour members away from the tired sandwich for lunch, and into a characteristic local bar where you’ll enjoy a plate like this: At my favorite bar in Venice (Osteria al Mascaron), just ask for the mixed seafood antipasto plate. It’s €16 and — unless you’re squiddish about fish — a delightful lunch.

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You can’t travel through France without a good wine-tasting. Here in Burgundy, we enjoy sharpening our wine-tasting skills in a classic cellar under our favorite hotel with a local wine expert.

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Anyone who dreams of going to St. Peter’s Basilica will consider a chance to go through the Holy Door (open only in Jubilee Years) a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As 2016 happens to be a Jubilee Year, our group got to do that with our Vatican visit. As I see it, it is the responsibility of a professional guide to know when these opportunities present themselves, and not to miss it.

(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.)

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Three Hardworking Guides: Rick, Trish, and Ben

For me, a big part of the joy in leading this three-week tour has been collaborating with two fine guides: Trish Feaster and Ben Cameron. We tag-teamed the tour and learned from each other all along the way. We have well over 100 guides at Rick Steves Europe Tours — both Americans and Europeans. I encourage them to play to their strengths, while studying in areas where they may be weak. Ben and Trish beautifully covered for me when I was weak, and that gave me a great chance to learn.

Trish with tour members

Trish takes the mic and engages our group as we cruise down the highway.

 

Ben in subway with group

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

On a Rick Steves tour, you learn to use the public transportation. Here in Rome, tour guide Ben coaches the group as we master the Roman underground.

 

Ben with group in Alps

Hiking through the Alps with a good guide (like Ben Cameron), you know where the farm-fresh yogurt and tastiest cheese is, you relax knowing you’re on the right trail, and you know just which mountain vistas are not to be missed.

 

Rick Steves and Ben with group in Rome

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

Here in Rome, Ben and I make sure all 28 of us get on the packed bus #280 as we head from St. Peter’s Square to dinner in Trastevere. One of the exhilarating challenges of being a guide (at least, a Rick Steves guide) is giving our tour members that “public transit experience”…and not losing anyone. We all made it, and the dinner was one of the best of the tour.

 

Ben Cameron, Trish Feaster, and Rick Steves

Thanks, Trish and Ben, for the great trip (and for carrying all that beer up to the top of that ruined castle to surprise our group)!

(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.)

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A Great Bus Driver Enhances a Tour

If you’ve ever been on a bus tour, you know what an important part of the mix your driver is. And if you’ve ever been a tour guide, you know that the driver can be your best friend…or a real obstacle to a smooth tour. We love our bus drivers and consider them part of our traveling family. (While we can’t promise this, several of our drivers have actually fallen in love with and married our tour members.)

Rick Steves with Richard bus driver

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

Bus driver Richard plays tour guide, and lets me imagine driving his wonderful coach.

 

Richard and tour member

Each year we give our tour members a patch as a memento of their tour. About 40 percent of the more than 20,000 travelers who joined us this year were return travelers. Here, Mike — a proud six-time tour alum — shows off the six patches he’s collected over his many years of touring with us.

 

Rick Steves tour group

Travelers on our tours are limited to a carry-on-sized bag. While we don’t strictly enforce that limit, our tour members are expected to carry their own bags from the bus to the hotel, and then to their rooms. And, because we strive to have centrally located hotels in delightfully traffic-free towns and old city centers, there are many times when getting to or from the bus involves a bit of a hike. Here’s our group leaving our Florence hotel (in another newly pedestrian-friendly, traffic-free center), and ready for Rome.

(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.)

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Road Testing the Rick Steves Audio Europe app

Rick Steves with app

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

As museums get more and more crowded, the value of the free audio tours on our Rick Steves Audio Europe app is increasing. This year, we’ve been producing several very important new tours and spiffing up existing ones, and I’ve been road-testing them as I travel. As our local guide led us through the Vatican Museum, I kept switching my earbuds between her tour and my recorded tour. Both worked great. (We fear that in the future, places like the Vatican Museum could get so crowded that leading a tour group through the collection will become simply impractical. In that case, it may be easier for our travelers to go through on their own. As guides, our job would be to simply get people in the front door, and then turn them loose with a Rick Steves audio tour.)

Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.

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Teaching in Europe

Rick Steves and tour group in front of David sculpture

Photo: thetravelphile.com / facebook.com/thetravelphile

I enjoy many aspects of my work. But perhaps the most gratifying is to stand before a great piece of art and explain it in a way that helps travelers fully appreciate it. And that’s what I got to do in Florence, in the inspirational presence of Michelangelo’s David, as I guided our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour.

(If you can’t physically be with me or one of our guides at David’s beautiful feet, you can still have my voice in your ear. Just download the free Rick Steves Audio Europe app and search for the “Accademia & Michelangelo’s David” audio tour.)