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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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Rick Steves Drinking Game

My guidebook editor (Risa), TV producer (Simon), and radio producer (Tim) always nail me when I pop in one of my favorite and overused catchphrases. There are certain words Simon will let me use just once per script (like “proud,” “boom times,” “glory days,” or “carbonate”). Then I get this on the Travelers Helpline section of the Graffiti Wall on our website: “The Rick Steves Drinking Game.” I learned lots about my own brain patterns and limited vocabulary with this fun posting and thread. Here some of my no-no words (and quirky pronunciations) offered by attentive readers, viewers, and travelers. Let’s all drink to new and creative ways for travel writers to say the same old thing.

“workaday” — as in “such and such is a workaday city”
“main drag”
Michael in Phoenix, AZ

How about “grab” — such as “grab a train,” “grab a bite”
Swan in Napa, CA

“backwater”
“sleepy”
“unchanged”
“sit back”
Jim in Oklahoma City, OK

“Raise your travel dreams to their upright and locked position.”
Teresa in Seattle, WA

On his podcasts he’s always asking a guest interviewee, “What’s your take on that?”
Nancy in Bloomington, IL

He also likes to use “salty” and “workaday” quite a bit when describing things.
Ashley in Baton Rouge, LA

“thrills” as in “maximum thrills per mile” or “sightseeing thrills” or “alpine thrills”
He uses the word “thrills” a lot.
Laura in Virginia

If you tried the drinking game with the word “local,” you might need to visit the ER for detox afterwards.
Tom in Somewhere Else, Not in USA

Here’s another fun game…try this in Europe! Every time you see a Rick Steves guidebook, you go and get a gelato!! Hahahahaha…they would need to roll me on the plane!!
Jackie in Renton, WA

“ambience”… and he pronounces it different than I do.
Janet in St Joseph, MI

Whoever said he pronounces “ambience” differently, remember when he used to say “oh-BLISK”? For someone who was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, he does have some interesting accent quirks. I wonder if he gets it from the Scandinavians in his family?
Teresa in Seattle, WA

“evocative”
P.S.: I hope he realizes this is all in good fun…apologies if no!
Betsey in New England

“Women/men/kids/locals strut their [insert appropriate adjective] stuff.” :)
Betsey’s right, this is just good fun. We love Rick!
Penny in Tulsa, OK

“Iran”
“sit back”
“grab”
“thrills”
Audrey in Keizer, OR

I second “evocative”! I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard anyone else use the word.
Candice in San Antonio, TX

To Jackie in Renton, WA: I would like the gelato game more than the drinking game. My human body has low toleration for alcohol, but a high toleration for gelato.
Ron in Florida

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Where’s Haiti?

My “No Aid to Haiti” entry was on the blog, and then it was gone. Several people asked what happened to it. Some (those who don’t know me very well) thought I removed it because I’m afraid of the controversy. No way. I love the discussion generated by these edgy topics. In fact, I was so impressed by the thoughtful dialogue this entry sparked, that I’ve decided to turn the Haiti piece into a newspaper op ed. (Newspapers don’t want to run something that’s already out there — even in a blog.) So for now, I’ve removed it from my site. Stay tuned…it’ll be back, and so will I. Thanks for your interest!

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No Aid to Haiti

On Conan O’Brien’s final Tonight Show Friday night, he said, “Don’t be cynical. Cynicism is my least favorite trait.” I don’t want to be cynical. It’s not constructive. But on that spectrum between frustrated and cynical, I’m not in a very good place right now. Just hours before that show, the four big networks joined together to broadcast a telethon to raise emergency aid for Haiti. America cares. We’re coming to the rescue. When people are in need, it brings out the best in the American people — regardless of our politics, we are united in support. Locally, my church is collecting “health kits for Haiti.” There’s a button on its website to help raise money. I’m inspired by the outpouring of goodwill. It’s good and necessary and motivated by love. But at the same time, I’m troubled that no one seems to be asking why Haiti is so wretchedly poor to begin with — so poor that even their presidential palace can be toppled by an earthquake. As soon as the passion of this moment fades, the US government will continue contributing to repressive trade policies that keep places like Haiti impoverished. Am I the only one disillusioned…concerned that almost nobody — especially those in our media or government — is talking about this? Charity is good. It helps people. It feels good. It’s easy to do, and easy to understand. But addressing the roots of structural poverty is the real challenge. A Toys for Tots-type organization collecting toys (“new and in their original packaging please”) brings cheer to poor kids who might not otherwise have a happy Christmas. And while caring people head to the mall with a longer shopping list, our society scuttles an opportunity to help those same families not to be impoverished by health care expenses. Again: simple charity…structural poverty. During tough economic times or when dealing with the human suffering caused by natural disasters at home or abroad, each of us is confronted with a personal choice. You can: ignore; respond; or ask why, learn, and act to address the root of problem. Most good people take door #2. It’s human nature. Nobody wants to open door #3. But we must. For example, seismic safety is a luxury only the privileged can afford. While the numbers aren’t in yet on Haiti’s quake, in 2001 a similar quake hit El Salvador and left nearly a quarter of the country (1.5 million people) homeless. (2001 was a momentous year for the USA, but imagine…a quarter of your country homeless.) An earthquake of the same magnitude hit my hometown that same year, and no one died. I was at work in our new-at-the-time building and remember riding it out like a hobby horse (suddenly thankful for the code requirements that made me spend extra for construction that could withstand such a quake). The best those living in a Haitian shantytown can afford for earthquake protection is to live in what’s called “miniskirt housing” — cinderblocks for the lower half of the wall, and light corrugated tin for the upper walls and roof. When a miniskirt house tumbles down, at least it won’t kill you. We can blame Haiti’s squalor on voodoo, on its heritage of slavery, on corruption, on the fact that its main export is topsoil (in a treeless land, each rainstorm flushes precious soil into the sea), or on many other factors. But we must also look at American and European trade policies that help keep nations like Haiti underdeveloped — tariffs that help keep them “banana republics.” A banana republic is a poor land whose economy is dominated by the export of its leading natural resource. It’s subjugated by First World trade policies that allow it to export raw materials but not finished products. Higher tariffs for processed goods make it nearly impossible to export anything but cheap raw materials to the already-developed world competitively. Put simply, Haiti can export raw sugar but not candy. Ghana can export cocoa but not chocolate bars. Honduras can export peanuts but not peanut butter. Compounding that are subsidies for American agricultural products. Haiti would love to compete fairly for the American market with its sugar, rice, and textiles, but tariffs and subsidies created by our government (to protect you and me) make it impossible. In Haiti, you’ll see fields that once grew rice now left unplanted. And across the street, a shack sells rice grown in the USA. That is an example of structural poverty put upon countless millions of people, in part by the trade policies of the wealthy world. Sure, it may be good business for us in the short term. But having squalor south of our border may not be in even the greediest American’s self-interest in the long term. The most widely used term for poor countries these days is “the Developing World.” But I find that label ironic, since so many First World economic policies systematically and actively keep places like Haiti underdeveloped. (The chapter on El Salvador in my Travel as a Political Act book explains this more thoroughly.) OK, I guess I am cynical. (I think that feeling’s stoked by the growing power of corporations to shape policies that impact real people — like the Haitians our hearts will go out to for next week or so. Even before everyone was dug out of the rubble that was once Port au Prince, the US Supreme Court gave American corporations the constitutional right to be protected as individuals. That means they have the right to buy our government in the name of “free speech.” I fear our “democracy” is fast becoming one with a government still “by, for, and of the people” — but via the corporations we own. And, as that happens, why would our government ever reconsider these trade policies?) Give aid or deal with the roots of the problem? That’s the question. Mother Teresa inspired us to feed the poor. Like everyone else, I loved her. El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero asked what were the roots of his nation’s poverty. He was shot. Today, my pastor worked a slide show on Haiti into his sermon: a series of horrific scenes of squalor. The last frame read: “Haiti before the earthquake.” On my last trip south of our border, I heard a local troubadour sing: “It’s not easy to see God in the orphan child who cleans the windshields at a traffic light…but we must.” So what do we do? I’m not sure. We can ask ourselves how costly it would be for the US to allow free trade so poor countries can compete with us. We can learn more about these issues. And we can support Bread for the World — see www.bread.org — which lobbies courageously, effectively, and against great odds for friendlier trade policies for people like the Haitians.

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Europe Invades Seattle

Europe Through the Back Door headquarters is finally quiet today after the busiest tour alumni party/tour guide summit we’ve ever hosted. For over twenty years, we’ve invited our guides and their tour members to town for a grand tour reunion. This year’s “massing of the scrapbooks” was the best and busiest yet. Last Saturday, over 1,200 tour alums (of the 8,000 travelers who joined our tours in 2009) gathered here for four parties. They were joined by 80 or so of our guides (60 of whom we flew in from all corners of Europe).

At each reunion party, I had the pleasure of introducing a smattering of guides to the gang to share greetings from their culture. When I introduced Cristina from Portugal and happily announced that for 2010 we were breaking Portugal away from our Spain tour, she noted that for 800 years her country has fought to maintain its independence from Spain (and has the longest unchanged border in Europe), so this itinerary change was only right. As she spoke, it occurred to me that our guidebooks and tours have dealt with similar border challenges that the countries themselves have. (Ireland and Britain were once the same book, and eventually the Irish gained their guidebook independence, too.)

I introduced Alfio from Sicily. Noting that Italy no longer has a shrinking population, he added an aside that his baby boy is “obsessed with breast-feeding.” He and his wife are being awakened nearly every hour through the night, and just before he left home, their little boy spoke his first word — tetta.

As usual, at the parties we acknowledged tour members who’ve taken the most tours. While plenty have enjoyed ten or twelve of our tours, no one gets near Larry from Springfield. He’s survived 17 of our tours and stood up to announce he just signed up for our “Village France” tour in 2010. Thanks Larry!

That same Saturday, we hosted 21 “Test Drive a Tour Guide” classes in our town’s three biggest venues. Each was filled with a mix of tour alums and potential first-time travelers interested in our various tour itineraries. (About half the people we took around Europe in 2009 were repeat customers. I think one of the most powerful marketing tools for this big sales event was to have alums and prospective first-time travelers in the same theater together to hear the guides describe the various tours. The energy and enthusiasm was palpable…and contagious.) I capped the day with an evening talk entitled “An Irreverent History of the ETBD Tour Program.” Watch a video of last year’s version of An Irreverent History.

My tour operations staff and I kicked off the week-long summit with an all-day general meeting on Friday. I started the day with a three-hour lecture on the heritage, ethics, and fundamentals of being a Rick Steves tour guide. I stressed our determination that our travelers get the absolute most value out of each experience on the itinerary and out of each guide. The bottom line: Employment is shaky for guides in general, but solid for our gang…and to keep it that way, we’re raising the bar on what our guides provide our travelers.

In the days since Saturday, we’ve been huddling in extensive review and brainstorming sessions in which guides for each region gather and debate the fine points of their tour itineraries — sharing the lessons they learned and discoveries they made in the last year of guiding.

Each night was a party or dinner in a different venue in Edmonds. Getting 60 or 80 guides together in a bar or Mexican restaurant is a rare treat — all exuberant about their work, so fun to talk with, and happy to weave together countless friendships…and all right here in this beautiful corner of the USA. And it was a blast to see the fun they were having experiencing our country. When I welcomed Arnaud Servignat, our very sophisticated Parisian guide, with a nice margarita, the salt on the lip of the glass startled him. (I have the most trouble pronouncing Arnaud’s last name…I keep pronouncing his name like the grape: Cabernet “Servignat.”) Sharing stories of tough travelers, Irish guide Stephen recalled how he once guided an Australian who opened twist-top beer bottles with his eye socket.

For some Sunday-afternoon fun, we rented two school buses with local guides and gave our guides a bit of their own medicine: a guided tour…of Seattle. I can imagine the Seattle guide must have had a memorable experience herself, with forty European guides on her bus. Peter from Hungary noted that rolling boisterously down the freeway into Seattle felt like the scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when the inmates commandeered the bus and escaped their asylum.

 Guides also enjoyed simply being in Seattle. A few, such as Lyuba from Bulgaria, had never been in the USA before, and they were as wide-eyed about our culture as their tour members are about theirs.

Of course, free time was also spent at the mall. A highlight: the Apple Store. The word spread quickly: “Same price as in Europe…but in dollars!” (meaning that a gadget you’d pay €300 for over there would cost $300 here — a 40 percent savings). I asked Arnaud to compare the service here with the service he’s accustomed to in Paris. He said, “Here, it exists.” Patrick from Brittany added, “There was more staff than clients, and they were jumping on you. They fixed my hard drive in two hours, with smiles. In France, it would be ten days and double the price.”

Our tour guides get extra work with us as guidebook researchers. Along with our editorial staff, I spent Tuesday morning with the 20 guides who help update our guidebooks. And I enjoyed a breakfast at our local diner with our new guides. As the ten guides sorted through the menu, Gokalp (from Turkey) said, “In all the movies, you call waitresses ‘honey.’ Is it okay to do that?” When the waitress was taking the orders, and asked what kind of eggs, Nina from Italy asked, “Do we choose that?” When the waitress followed up with, “Your toast?”, Nina asked, “Do we choose that, too?” When the various plates finally arrived, Lyuba from Bulgaria exclaimed, “Wow, it’s a very serious breakfast!”

Seeing three young Turkish guides at the breakfast table was a reminder that Turkey is now our second most popular tour destination. These young Turkish guides filled the far east end of our table with bright eyes and exuberance…much like Turkey aspires to fill the east end of the European Union.

In the weeks leading up to our summit, I spent several long days with our tour operations staff reviewing our concerns and vision for each of our 30 or so tour itineraries. This week, while our staff and the guides were hammering out these ideas and the countless details of their respective tour itineraries, I was in our radio studio taping a world of radio interviews. Over the course of four six-hour recording sessions, we got 30 or 40 separate interviews (each streamed in the rough on our website and with live call-ins from around the country). Producer Tim Tattan now has raw material for about four months of radio shows in the can — and a lot of work ahead of him. Getting our foreign experts actually in the studio for all those interviews was a huge boon for our national radio show.

For a couple of days, we had our TV crew running around capturing the excitement of the event on camera, which we’ll edit and eventually put up on our website for those who couldn’t make it to Seattle for the occasion but wanted to.

My staff designed and pulled off this complex and exhilarating week as smoothly as could be. And today we say goodbye, as our guides fly back to points all over Europe — from Stockholm to Sofia, from Lisbon to Thessaloniki, from Glasgow to Izmir.

My brain is fried, my voice is hoarse, and my tour guide heart is soaring. Now we catch our breath, knowing we are primed and ready to lead a 2010 tour season brimming with rich experiences, vivid lessons, memories to last a lifetime, and busloads of good travelers.

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Facilitating the Travel Dreams of Those Who Can’t

I wanted to share an email with you that inspired me today:

Hi Rick,

This may be something you get ALL the time but I am giving it a shot. I admit, I am not writing as a long-time fan. But after hearing about you from my father, I have taken the time to look at your website and check out some clips of your shows. Let me explain.

My dad was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005. Eventually he was forced to quit his job in a hospital because the environment was something that his immune system could not handle. I do not want to go into the cliche details of a cancer patient’s ups and downs. However, I would like to share a little detail of how your work has given a great ray of sunshine to a grim scenario.

At the age of 57, he was forced into home confinement because of this cancer. He joked around about becoming the stay-at-home husband he’d always dreamed of being. But we knew it was making him miserable. However, he would talk about some of the things he would do to stay busy. He especially loved the “European travel show with Rick Steves,” as he put it.

As I eventually began learning, your show was what he looked forward to each day. He cut our phone conversations short so many times because your show was about to air! Through all of the depression and shock of trading in an active life for staying home each day fighting cancer, he found his joy through your program. He knew his illness would never allow him to travel to the grocery store again, never mind Europe. However, after every episode he would still make notes about all of the places he would love to go in the cities you visited.

During my last year of college I studied abroad in London. After returning, my dad was fully prepared to quiz me on the things I had done and seen because “Rick said THIS was the best place to go” or “Rick said THAT area near the Thames River had the best views.” I laughed at the time but as I write this I really do appreciate the fact that my dad was able to escape the hell he was living in by traveling with you to London, Budapest, Normandy, Tuscany and all of the other places he could only dream about.

I realize this is part of the reason why you do the show and have heard thousands of stories, but I couldn’t resist sharing this.

He is currently receiving treatment at a cancer center here in Houston, Texas. He came for a stem cell transplant but things are not looking so great and it doesn’t look like he will make it to that transplant. But what keeps him going each day? Having his family here and the fact that he found a channel that sometimes airs Rick Steves’ Europe!

It appears that you only do European travel so I take it that you won’t be in Texas anytime soon. But I would love nothing more than to have him receive a personalized message from you, perhaps in the form of a phone call or hand written card. This may sound absurd but I figured it was worth a shot.

I understand if it’s not possible and I haven’t told him about this wild idea for that reason. But I do want to send a big THANKS from Houston!

-A new-ish fan, Adele Thompson

I hope Adele and her father’s story can inspire us all to be thankful for our health, to embrace life while we have it, and to travel (if we’re so inclined) while we can.

I used to be very wrongheaded about the value of my travel teaching being for “real travelers” only. Now I now see that part of my mission is also to help those who can only dream about faraway places to do so vividly.

Most of us will, one day, be able to carry on the way we like to only in our dreams. My dad will always be on the verge of buying a boat, even though his sailing days are over. And for as long as he’s around, we’ll talk of his next boat. My old landlord used to shuffle into my travel center (well into the Parkinson’s disease that eventually took his life) to plan his next trip — even though his caretaker and I knew it would never happen. I remember unfolding the maps and marveling at how just daydreaming about flying away brought him such great joy.

I called Adele hoping to speak with her father today but he was unable. As I pop some DVDs in the mail to Adele’s dad and hope they’ll arrive in time to take him on a few more trips, I am reminded how our travel spirits can outlive our passports. And I’m inspired to respect and celebrate the resilient spirit that keeps us going.