Rick Steves's Blog, page 2

With the fall of Afghanistan, I’ve been reflecting on my travel experiences there as a 23-year-old backpacker on the “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. Yesterday and today, it’s a poor yet formidable land that foreign powers misunderstand and insist on underestimating. 

In this journal entry from 1978, stow away with me for another dreamy day in Herat, Afghanistan.

Monday, July 31, 1978: Herat

I didn’t stir for nine hours. After breakfast we picked up our rental bikes and began a littl...

With the fall of Afghanistan, I’ve been reflecting on my travel experiences there as a 23-year-old backpacker on the “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. Yesterday and today, it’s a poor yet formidable land that foreign powers misunderstand and insist on underestimating. 

In this journal entry from 1978, stow away with me as I explore Herat, the leading city in western Afghanistan.

Sunday, July 30, 1978: Herat 

A dream woke me at 7:30 and by 8:15 I gave up trying to fall back to sleep. ...

With the fall of Afghanistan, I’ve been reflecting on my travel experiences there as a 23-year-old backpacker on the “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. Yesterday and today, it’s a poor yet formidable land that foreign powers misunderstand and insist on underestimating.  

In this journal entry from 1978, stow away with me on the bus from Mashhad, Iran, to Herat, the leading city in western Afghanistan. 

Saturday, July 29, 1978: Mashhad to Herat 

My Spanish friend woke me at 5:45. I thi...

While I know otherwise, I often find myself wondering if the name “Afghanistan” comes from some ancient word for “tragedy.”

Afghanistan is in the headlines yet again — swiftly, and with almost no resistance, taken over by Taliban overlords, who envision a medieval-style caliphate. To someone of my generation, this weekend’s events feel like déjà vu from a lifetime of watching that troubled corner of the world. First, in a decade of warfare that spanned nearly the entire 1980s, Afghanistan hob...

I believe a regular does of travel memories can be good for the sou. Here’s one of my favorites — and I’d love to hear some of your most memorable travel tales, as well. 

It’s the summer of 2008, and I’m hanging out in the living room of my B&B in the Amsterdam suburb of Haarlem with my hosts Hans and Marjet. Reaching for my Heineken, I notice it sits on a handbook the Dutch government produces to teach prostitutes about safe sex. Thumbing through it, I say to Hans, “It’s both artistic and ex...

“COVID and the Anti-Vaxxers”  

JK, it’s a 13th-century image of hell from the Florence Baptistery. Europe has suffered through many plagues and pandemics over the centuries — and in the Middle Ages (before they had the miracle of vaccines), they thought it was God’s anger or the devil that was making their lives miserable. They had no science to ignore — unlike today, when many in our society insist on bringing this avoidable misery upon our community. 

Back then, life was “nasty, brutish, and ...

As Europe starts opening up to travelers again, it’s more exciting than ever to think about the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s one of my favorites:   

This woman’s haunting face makes it clear right away that — despite the sumptuous beauty of this painting — it doesn’t tell a happy tale. The Lady of Shalott knows she’s floating down ...

As Europe starts opening up to travelers again, it’s more exciting than ever to think about the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s one of my favorites:   

For 2,000 years, the Parthenon temple in Athens remained almost perfectly intact. But in 1687, with Athens under siege, the Parthenon was used to store a huge cache of gunpowder. (See ...

For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art and architecture — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s one of my favorites:   

Nowhere else does the splendor of Moorish civilization shine so beautifully than at the Alhambra — this last and greatest Moorish palace in Europe. 

For seven centuries (711–1492), much of Spain was Muslim, ruled by the Islamic Moors from North Africa. While the rest of Europe was slumbering t...

As Europe starts opening up to travelers again, it’s more exciting than ever to think about the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art and architecture — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s an ancient favorite:   

The caveman man cave at Lascaux is startling for how fashionably it’s decorated. The walls are painted with animals — bears, wolves, bulls, horses, deer, and cats — an...