Rick Steves's Blog, page 19

These days, I’ve noticed that Americans have become very “follow the crowd” in their travels. Our appetite for bucket-list, crowdsourced, Instagrammable travels is funneling countless tourists into the same few places. Consequently, popular cities are feeling crushed by mass tourism, and popular sights are congested to the point where many find them not only less enjoyable… but actually dangerous.

Citizens of over-touristed cities like Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Venice are getting grumpy about...

In 1980 I self-published my first book, “Europe Through the Back Door.” It was easy: write out the lectures from the travel class I taught at the University of Washington’s Experimental College, sweet-talk my girlfriend into typing it and my roommate into sketching the photos, drive the 180-page manuscript to the local printer with $2000, and two weeks later pick up 2,000 copies of that first edition.

I’ve updated the book with about a hundred days of travel experience each year since. And...

Over the years, I’ve made several trips to developing countries specifically to learn about why, in a world of such abundance, people go hungry.

I’m privileged in so many ways. I live in a rich and highly developed country. If I’m hungry, I go to the supermarket. If I need water, I turn on the faucet. When I’m sick, I go to the doctor. And my children enjoyed a fine education. Meanwhile, almost a billion people get none of that. It’s like we live on two different planets. And it’s so easy...

I’ve always wanted to produce a show that explores the key aspects of extreme poverty — ever since I first visited Central America and got a perspective-shattering peek into the daily lives of the more than 700 million people on our planet who live on less than $2 a day. For the past few years, my crew and I have been hard at work to capture on camera the inspiring people and committed organizations dealing with this reality, so different from most Americans’ own privileged existence. And...

As a child traveling in Europe, I met a piano player who was a concentration camp survivor. I remember watching the serial number tattooed on his wrist sliding in and out of his sleeve as he played. He told me stories of his experience…stories that I would never forget.

The evils of fascism were incremental. As its small evils became big evils, German society managed to be oblivious to its own atrocities. At first, concentration camps contained people who didn’t conform. Then, they became...

It’s my favorite time of year when I host my European tour guides here at the Rick Steves’ home base for Test Drive a Tour Guide. While they’re in town, I’ll be taking advantage of their travel expertise by recording radio interviews with them from January 22–29.

I plan to record about 50 new interviews all focused on Europe; our topics will include updates on countries from Iceland and Poland to Spain and Croatia. We’ll enjoy fascinating conversations ranging from a paprika primer in...

On New Year’s Day 2020, Rick Steves’ Europe lost one of our oldest and dearest friends: Walter Mittler, who ran Hotel Mittaghorn in Gimmelwald, Switzerland. Walter, who was in his mid-90s, died peacefully in the hotel that was his home for the last half of his life, in a tiny village surrounded by the wonder of the Swiss Alps.

Gimmelwald is that pristine alpine village that inspired me to say (on my first visit, in my student backpacker days), “If heaven isn’t what it’s cracked up to be…send...

Congrats! Together, we hit our goal: raising $1,000,000 to empower Bread for the World.

I just got great news: the final update from Bread for the World about our holiday fundraiser. (Gifts just kept coming in, well into January.) At total of 3,435 of you participated — and together, you donated $425,810. With my $700,000 “double match” (of the first $350,000), we raised just over $1.1 million — far exceeding our million-dollar goal — to help build the political will to end hunger. Just...

A decade ago, I traveled to Iran to better understand a country with whom we seemed perennially on the verge of war. I came home with a one-hour public television special (“Rick Steves Iran: Yesterday and Today”) that attempted to understand the Iranian psyche and humanize the Iranian people. I believe if you’re going to bomb a place, you should know its people first. Even if military force is justified, it should hurt when you kill someone.

Some things just don’t change. America is, once...

Christmas in some European countries kicks off 12 more days of religious observance — the famous Twelve Days of Christmas. They end today (January 6) with the Epiphany holiday, when the Three Wise Men were said to have finally brought their gifts to the baby Jesus.

France, not surprisingly, celebrates Epiphany in an edible way. For several days from Christmas until the Feast of Epiphany, the French line up at bakeries to buy the galette des rois — the “Cake of Kings.”...