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
The Rick Steves 2014 annual Tour Guide Summit is well under way. In the past four days, our guides have endured 10 hours of my lectures and workshops on how to lead a tour in the Rick Steves way. As was stressed all along, “Each of you is an excellent guide with your own style. We want to keep that and mesh it with what our travelers expect when they sign up on a Rick Steves tour. Because our travelers have high and unique expectations and we aim to exceed them with every trip.”
Thirty years ago only one guide led a Rick Steves tour. His name was Rick Steves.In 2014, well over a hundred guides lead Rick Steves tours (and each guides in his or her region far better than Rick could). These are the guides who make up the 2014 Rick Steves’ Europe Tour Guide Summit (many of them in the USA for the first time.)A highlight in my social calendar is inviting 140 guides from nearly every country in Europe into my home for a multicultural festival and celebration. We love our work (and my ears are still ringing from all the boisterous fun we had last night).
Tomorrow (Saturday), January 18, with voices still a little hoarse, join me and our guides online from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. PST for the live streaming of Test Drive a Tour Guide — eight free one-hour slideshows on Europe’s top tour destinations for 2014. Happy travels!
We are really into maximizing the experiences of our tour members on Rick Steves tours. Today we’re meeting with all of our guides to brainstorm ways we can give our travelers the most vivid memories as souvenirs to take home. Of course, a good guide helps travelers get out of their comfort zones and into new edible experiences, too. We took a moment to share with our guides this video collection of tasty bits of Europe. Warning: Don’t view this on an empty stomach! But do watch it with a determination to enjoy the taste treats of Europe on your next trip. Bon appétit!
P.S. This Saturday, January 18, 9am P.S.T., join me and my tour guides online for the live streaming of Test Drive a Tour Guide — eight free, one-hour slideshows on Europe’s top tour destinations for 2014. Tune in and learn more!
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
We’re hosting over 100 guides this week. They flew from all over Europe to Edmonds (just north of Seattle). While they may be aces, with all the tour-guiding experience in the world, we’re dedicating this week to making sure they know what our travelers expect and what distinguishes a Rick Steves tour.
You can be a French foodie, and Italian art historian, a Spanish dancer who fights bulls on the weekend, or the top Blue Badge guide in all of England. But if you don’t know the Name Game, you’re not a Rick Steves guide. On our tours, we want everyone to know everyone else’s name — so our groups do this little memory aid exercise. And this morning, I met with 25 of our newest guides to actually do the Name Game together.
Still fuzzy with jetlag, we gathered in a circle and went systematically around (as the Name Game entails) until everyone knew everyone’s name.
Here’s a fun little video clip of Liz Lister (from Scotland), who happened to stand in the unlucky spot in the circle — immediately to my right. When it was finally her turn, she needed to go through the entire group. And Liz (who was my guide when I joined our Best of Scotland tour this summer) nailed it. After this, we reshuffled so everyone was in a different spot, and the guides showed off their memory by getting all the names right again.
We hope you’ll be playing the Name Game with your small group and great guide sometime in 2014: perhaps in Vienna, maybe Lisbon, possibly Dublin, or how about Amsterdam? Wherever you end up traveling, when it’s on a Rick Steves tour, it’s with a great group of people… and they’ll all know your name.
P.S. I don’t want to keep the guides to myself. On Saturday, January 18 at 9 am P.S.T, join me and my tour guides online for the live streaming of Test Drive a Tour Guide — eight free, one-hour slideshows on Europe’s top tour destinations for 2014. Tune in and learn more!
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
There was a time when I believed only I could lead a “Rick Steves” tour. Of course, those days are long gone, and today I’m the first to celebrate that fact that our guides are the best in the business. Good as they are, we need them to know the Rick Steves style of traveling “through the Back Door.” That’s why we’ve gathered more than 100 guides here in Edmonds this week for our annual tour guide summit. I just spent the morning giving a three-hour “Rick Steves tour guiding 101” talk to our newest guides. And I’m so excited about the caliber of these rookies. Many of them joined us last year and already have one season of our tours under their belts.
Most of them are seasoned professionals with deep, personal knowledge of the regions in which they guide. And now they are better equipped than ever to meet and even exceed the very high expectations of those who sign up for a Rick Steves tour.
Here’s a fun video we made during last year’s tour guide summit to introduce our rookies. These guides are the people enabling us to continue to grow as a tour company without compromising the ideals we’ve had for our tours ever since we started 30 years ago. These guides are our future, and they are sure to give our tour members the Rick Steves travel experience of a lifetime in 2014.
P.S. I don’t want to keep the guides to myself. On Saturday, January 18, 9 am P.S.T. join me and my tour guides online for the live streaming of Test Drive a Tour Guide — eight free one-hour slideshows on Europe’s top tour destinations for 2014. Learn more and tune in!
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine anyone but me leading a Rick Steves tour. For 25 years, I personally led at least one departure of every itinerary. But for the last ten years, rather than lead them, I join them as a tour member. And each year, it’s clear to me that my guides — who are specialists in their country or region — do a far better job leading our tours than I ever could.
In 2013, our more than 100 guides led over 600 groups around Europe with my complete confidence. I am adamant about hiring guides I personally know and trust, and who share my love for Europe and passion for teaching. As they begin to land today in Seattle for our 2014 Tour Guide Summit, this clip reminds me of how they shine.
All of us here at Rick Steves’ Europe headquarters look forward to welcoming our guides starting tomorrow!
P.S. I don’t want to keep the guides to myself. On Saturday, January 18, join me and my tour guides online for the live streaming of Test Drive a Tour Guide — eight free one-hour slideshows on Europe’s top tour destinations for 2014. Learn more and tune in to Rick Steves’ Test Drive a Tour Guide.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
