Rick Steves
Appearances
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And that's an opportunity that even tourist who's going to do all the silly Instagram posing that you were alluding to earlier, you can have a little bit of both. And that makes your trip much, much richer.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Okay. Well... First of all, most travelers I know, they're proud to be known as a traveler as opposed to a tourist. So that's the big thing. I'm more thoughtful. I'm not just here to shop and get a selfie. I'm here to immerse myself in the culture and learn. That is a traveler, to become a temporary local. A traveler learns about the world, but I think a pilgrim learns about themself.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And you learn about yourself by leaving your home and looking at it from a distance. You learn about yourself, I think, by trying to get close to God in your travels. I mean, for me, the greatest church is walking on a ridge high in the Alps. The last thing a Lutheran is going to do is raise their arms to the heavens, but I feel like doing that one.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
when i'm top of an elf you just feel so good and you just feel like this world is such a beautiful place and it's filled with beautiful people and nature is so fragile and it's just such a delight and a blessing uh it changes you and uh it becomes pretty clear when you travel that we're all in this together
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
More people are traveling than ever before, but there's not more transformational travel than ever before. There's this superficial Instagram thing. TripAdvisor kind of travel where you find, it's very interesting, in Europe I find different places where suddenly, inexplicably, there's a mob of people And what's going on?
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Oh, that's where everybody stands to get their selfie with the Matterhorn behind them. I was just in Zermatt. And there's a construction project going on. And I asked the locals there in this little Swiss town below the Matterhorn, what are they building here? Well, the Instagram people were clogging the bridge so people couldn't cross the bridge when they're going to work.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
So they could get a photograph of them at the right hour with the Matterhorn. So we're making a platform so they can actually stand there and not obstruct traffic. It's beyond me. I don't get it. But that's sort of something that is hijacking the possible value of travel. But maybe it's good because it just gets people out there.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Well, a good guidebook, I think, would tell you about why you want to go there other than to take a picture to show off to your friends on social media.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Yeah. I don't think it's ruining travel, but I do think there's, you know, when I started traveling, there was a shortage of information. Now there's too much information. Anybody can be a travel writer with social media. And people are, there's this sort of spirit that, oh yeah, crowdsourcing. I just want to know what everybody's doing on TripAdvisor and then that's what I'm going to do.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And younger travelers, I think, are more enamored with that crowdsourcing experience. I'm more tuned into having a trusted expert that's been doing this for years that goes there and you know his or her style and they become your scout. And now we got AI, which is going to be a challenge for people in the future to know, is this possible?
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
real information or is this computer-generated information that's going to shape my trip? So now there's the challenge of people sorting through these options and that will kind of distinguish travelers going forward in a lot of ways, I think. You've got this problem now, Lulu, that Everybody's going to the same places at the same time.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
This is becoming its own little, making it more and more extreme of a storm of public understanding.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
and this is driven to a certain degree by social media and bucket list travel, and everybody has to do this and has to do that. I like to say in my lectures, there's two IQs of European travelers, those who wait in lines and those who don't wait in lines. I've seen people walk by something and they see a line and they get in it before they know what the line's for.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I forgot I wrote that journal for 40 years. I mean, I didn't forget. I never looked at it. It was just in a box. And then during COVID, I read it. First of all, what kind of 23-year-old would write a 60,000-word journal while on a hippie bus going from Istanbul to Kathmandu? And when I think about that, I was not a travel writer. I was a piano teacher. I just was writing that for me.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I go the other direction when I see a line like that. Or I realize that I don't need to put up with this line. There's a lot of less trendy places that are never crowded. The Colosseum in Rome is chaos. You've got to book in advance or you're not going to get in there. 10-minute, 15-minute walk away, the Baths of Caracalla are just as impressive an example of Roman engineering.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Beautiful, beautiful, peaceful place, never crowded at all. So one thing we're doing in our guidebooks now is recognizing that these crowd problems are going to get worse and worse as more and more people travel and more and more people travel with agendas driven by crowdsourcing and social media. And they're all going to be going to the same places, essentially ignoring the other places.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And Europe is wide open if you can just break yourself free from the need to see the place that everybody wants to see a photograph of and immerse yourself in other dimensions of the culture.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
That's a very interesting question. First of all, I have a big impact on a few places that I've really made my marquee places, what I call back doors. And the Italian Riviera, the Cinque Terre is a good example of that. And when I first went there, it was one of the poorest parts of Italy. And you could hardly get there by car. And it was just forgotten.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
These amazing little villages surrounded by vineyards on the Italian Riviera. And you walked to each of them. Each one had a castle. Each one had beautiful zero-kilometer eating opportunities. You know, that's the thing in Italy where you'd eat zero-kilometer, everything grown right there.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Um, and, uh, I discovered it for American travelers and I raved about it and I made a TV show and I sent everybody there with my books and suddenly people are wearing t-shirts that says, I've seen, you know, Rome, Venice, Florence, and the Cinque Terre. It's right up there with those guys. And, uh, I go there and it's crowded, admittedly. It's commercial. It's greedy.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Now the local people are retired in the big city and they've hired younger people, often from other countries, to run their little B&Bs. And you've got all sorts of cute little boutique shops and experiences on the Riviera. But the magic is still there. It's morphed and now they are affluent towns instead of poor towns. And now the new generation doesn't even want to work in the fields.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
They turn their back on their vineyards that they inherit from their parents. They used to be beloved.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I wish... Europe was an oasis with women with jugs on their heads getting water, you know, that idyllic old world thing. But it's not. And tourism is a big part of the economy. And I don't know, I'm kind of perplexed about it. Occasionally I find a place that cannot handle the crowds and I will not write it up. You know, it's just too fragile.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Occasionally I find a place that doesn't want the crowds. That's pretty rare, to be honest. And I don't write it up because I don't want to send people to a place where they're not welcome.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Yeah. But generally, I've got to be honest, I'm like... I'm the hired hand of my readers to find the best places over there and give them what they need to enjoy it. I would say there's good tourism and bad tourism from the point of view of people who live in these towns.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And the people who are angry with the tourists are not angry with my kind of travelers who come in and stay in a hotel and buy dinner and are curious about the culture. What they don't like is people that blitz in on mass tourism by cruise ships or tour buses that stay in a big modern hotel outside of the city. And the people don't leave anything in the town except their congestion.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And when I read it, it was really insightful. It might sound immodest, but one thing I love as a writer is you can't go back to the United States and write it up. You've got to write it up right there in the humid, buggy reality with all the cacophony of culture all around you. That's where you take your notes and it's most vivid.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
There's consequences of travel. We have to deal with the white elephant in the room, and that would be climate change and how travelers contribute to that. And that could be a whole other discussion. But my challenge is to recognize that people can travel, people can contribute to climate change, and people can come home having just exacerbated the gap between them and the rest of the world.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It's remarkable to me how people can travel and not be impacted by what they see. My challenge is to try to inspire people to be thoughtful. And the most frightened people are the people who've never traveled, whose worldview is shaped by commercial news media. And the people that are not afraid are the people who have been out there and met the enemy.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And I think my most powerful travel experiences have been going places where I'm not supposed to go. Cuba, Palestine, Iran. You can't always go to these kind of places. I would never go to places that are dangerous, but I've had great travel experiences in places where you'd be surprised I've gone to.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
The friendliest people, the most curious people, the people that need to meet me and I need to meet them. When they meet me, it's tougher for their propaganda to demonize me. And when I meet them, it's tougher for my country's propaganda to dehumanize them. It's a powerful thing. We become less afraid of each other. The flip side of fear is understanding, and we gain understanding when we travel.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And that alone makes travel a worthwhile experience. And when it's done thoughtfully, we come home and we live our lives as more thankful than ever that we're American citizens, but also better citizens of the planet. And that just makes my life richer. It makes it more filled with truth, and it gives more colors to my palette. I'm just really thankful for that kind of a souvenir.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
There's regrets. It has not been good for relationships with loved ones. And I'm aware of that. And in a way, I'm sad about it, but you have to make a choice.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
So I was doing that on that hippie trail ride, sitting there watching the needle bend as it went into my travel partner's arm at the border so he could get his shot because he didn't have it on his yellow international certificate of vaccination. That's a vivid moment to think that you're stopped on the border between Iran and Afghanistan and glad you don't have that needle going into your arm.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Hey, Lulu. Good morning. How are you doing?
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It's early in Seattle. So far, I'm great.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I don't think I have an agenda to live in the place I grew up. It's just I'm settled here, you know. I look out my window right now and I can see what was my junior high school. And I think I got to show it to you. There you go. Can you see?
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
This is the field. I just had to run around that track when I was in seventh grade.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
That's a bad memory. I've always worked on the same street. I've worked at four addresses on the same street, four blocks up the street from the ferry dock, and I can walk there in seven minutes from my home. This is where I've got friends. This is where I know the bar. This is where I go for my old-fashioned American-style greasy spoon breakfast. This is my home, yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Well, thank you. I'm doing as well as you can be doing when you have prostate cancer. A month ago, I said goodbye to my prostate, and I see it as a journey. I don't speak the language, but I don't know exactly where it's going. I'm not in control of the itinerary. I want to tackle it with what I consider a traveler's mindset. But it's scary at the same time. My prognosis is very good.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
If you're going to get cancer, prostate's a good kind of cancer to get. And it's interesting to me, it hasn't gotten me down. I'm kind of having, not fun, but I'm having a learning experience. I didn't really want to be an expert on incontinence, but I'm going to get through it. And people are coming out of the woodworks telling me about their experience.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
One of the most commented on and shared posts I've ever had on Facebook was when I shared my experience there. And it was a very, very positive thing. I've always thought it's important not to keep these things secret, to be embarrassed about anything. When I was a teenager, that was a long time ago, my mom had some kind of depression.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And they were fiddling around trying to find the right kind of antidepressant medicine for her and so on. And I know that there's a lot of depression in our society. And even as a teenager, I felt like, I can't keep this a secret. We've got to share it with people so that when they have depression in their family...
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
they will be more open about it and sharing and not be alone and afraid, but be in community. And, you know, I've had a lot of prayers and a lot of thoughts, thoughts and prayers and warm feelings and all that. And it almost has a tangible value. It fills the sails that motor me through this journey. And I'm really thankful for it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
No, but it gives me an awareness of what you might regret when you're wrapping up your life. You know, you think about that. And it does make me consider and reconsider, you know, my priorities and be more mindful. Be more mindful, yeah. Yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
There's regrets. It has not been good for my family. I got divorced. It's not been great for relationships with loved ones. And it's a choice you have to make. I would love to be... the person I was before I was a travel writer.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
This was a vivid trip.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I would have had a very, very beautiful life being a piano teacher and coming home every night for dinner and mowing the lawn and joining clubs and, you know, being regular and reliable. But I've chosen a different path, and this is a path that is... It's a mission for me.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
and I don't spend a lot of time explaining to people why my values are the way they are, or my priorities are the way they are. This is something that it's not accidental. I've calculated it, and I've got an opportunity to be what I consider extremely productive from helping people travel in a constructive way. And I choose that knowing it's not going to be without a cost. And I'm aware of that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And in a way, I'm sad about it. But again, you have to make a choice.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Oh, that's interesting, yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It's almost a calling from a pastoral sense or something. This is why God put me here. And it gives me energy. It's like breathing straight oxygen. And I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but it fits me. And I would have it no other way.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I've thought about that. That's a very good question, and it's kind of cool to have to put it into words, my thoughts on that. I would welcome the day, strangely, when I could not travel anymore because it would open up a gate of things that I've not done because of my love for travel. I've got a great piano sitting here. I don't play it enough. I've got a cabin in the mountains.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I've got an amazing girlfriend. I've got a wonderful son and daughter and a grandson. And if suddenly I couldn't do my work anymore, I don't think I'd miss a beat. Much as I love my work, much as I can neglect things that other people would think, boy, what a what an odd character that you would not value that. I would take it as good news that now I can turn a corner and do something else.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I would just, you know, be thankful that I had enough vigor left in me and my, that I could enjoy it fully. You know, I took a one week hike around Mount Blanc. with my girlfriend Shelly. And I'm just... I love traveling with her. And it was a great thing because hiking around Mont Blanc, there was no research I could do. I wasn't going to write a book about it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It was just... And it was pushing me to the limit with... what I could do physically. And I was in a whole different world. I was in tune with different things in my body. I was taking time to do things that were not productive in this Rick Steves way that I'm so focused on. And after that week, Lulu, I just thought, wow, I was so into something I didn't know I could be into.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
A long distance hike with one person, Learning nothing of value, really, for my work. Just realizing I could do it in this world, such a beautiful place to experience. And there are dimensions of experiencing this world that I have yet to try.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
You've stumped Rick Steves. Now, I can tell you what not to miss, but I'm thinking, what should you skip? Skip places with no artifacts in your sightseeing. Places that are commercial gimmicks. The torture dungeon. The Leonardo exhibit. It's just a kit that people buy and they put it up and they charge people a lot of money to see it. That's what you skipped.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Not because they're bad, but because when you go there, you have less time and energy to do something else that's more valid. And then the place is to see, find a way to put yourself in a world of people where you're not a tourist, where you're not part of the economy, but where you're just kind of crashing the party. Go to a bingo parlor in Wales.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Sit on a bench in Sicily with a bunch of old retired guys. Play backgammon in Turkey. Get naked with a bunch of people in Finland in a sauna. And you're sitting there and all you've got is... wet hair plastered on Finland flesh, steam, beautiful wood, and a sense that you don't know what century you're in, but you know you're in Finland. Ha! You've got to find those kind of moments.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It's been a delight, Lulu, talking to you, and happy travels.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Yeah, it is a cumulative thing. I mean, these little seeds add up. And if you're a good traveler, you're more exposed. You put yourself... You travel with the window down. Some people, their wisdom is, oh, don't get in on a bus. It's too crowded. You might get pickpocketed.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I love to be on a bus that's so crowded that there's people hanging outside the door when the bus takes off and then they settle in like cornflakes settled into a box, you know, and there's always room for one more body. That's a beautiful, beautiful part of the world that people who are too careful, they miss. But you have to be out, like you were there at that...
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
gathering of journalists on an anniversary. That was a lucky break for you, and it had a huge impact.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It's serendipity, and you've got to say yes to serendipity. First of all, you've got to put yourself in a situation where you stumble onto serendipity. Little moments happen, and these little moments, as a travel teacher, I draw from for the rest of my days.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Yeah, for many, many years when I crossed the border, they'd say, what's your occupation? And I'd say, teacher. My classroom is the road. I teach people on buses or I teach them through my books or with my TV shows. But for me, that's what I am. I think that's sort of, I've only had two jobs and they're both teaching things I love. I taught piano and I teach travel now.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And it was a big emotional deal for me to make the transition. I remember I had to decide in 1980, when I was 25 years old, am I going to be a piano teacher or a travel teacher? And I had a recital hall in my little town. My students were giving recitals and their parents were sitting on boxes of my first self-published edition of Europe Through the Back Door.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And my heart was really in the travel more than in the piano teaching.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
and i so i gave up my students and i turned my recital hall into a travel lecture hall and you know we had a monthly world traveler slide club it met the first sunday of every month i had a eight hour all-day seminar on how to travel skills that would be a saturday talk and the next day i had a six or seven hour talk on art the art of europe
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And then on Sunday night, I had a three-hour talk called Travel Beyond Europe, TBE. And that would be Egypt, Morocco, and Turkey, just for the real eager beavers. And that was when I was a college kid. And, you know, that would be a way I would make a little money, sell a few of my self-published books.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
But most important, hone my delivery and develop a sixth sense for what are the fears and apprehensions that are troubling people before their trip. I would have everybody fill out a little page that said, what are they really anxious about for their trip? What are they afraid of? And I learned a lot by that. And I learned a lot by 20 or 30 years of being a tour guide on a bus.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
That's where you learn how much of an attention span do people have? How many Madonnas and children can they see before they wouldn't walk across the street for a Raphael? When I think of the trip that I used to do when I was starting my company, I just did around and around Europe in 22 days, it was called. And it's the best 3,000 miles that you're paid to offer.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And you start the trip and people are wide-eyed and don't know the drill. And then you teach them, you create a esprit de corps, you create an understanding that we're a family. And then you realize that We need to provide context so people know what they're looking at.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It's just a fun, artful challenge for a tour manager, a tour organizer, a tour guide to recognize this is a big part in the lives of people who have scrimped and saved and dreamed for years to take this trip. And we do it over and over and over again. And I love it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
I had this sense that people were threatened by other cultures that that did things well. And there's this pride in America. And I thought, I remember back then, let's say you're checking in at a hotel and you have to write down your birthday. And my birthday is May 10, 55. So it's 5, 10, 55. And they go, no, it's 10, 5, 55. They put the day before the month. It's a silly little thing.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
But a lot of Americans would be bummed out at that. They'd draw back and they'd clench their fist and they'd think, we fought and died for your freedom and your way of life. And I'm not going to sit here and let you tell me that it's not month, day, year. Americans are threatened by this. And you got to tell them, no, they're not saying they're better than you. They just do it this way.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And, you know, we are not the norm. This is very important. We do kind of lead the world in self-evident and God-given truths, but we are not the norm. And I just love to expose people to examples of things they would never encounter at home. And then they've got the option to embrace it and enjoy it or say, I tried that. I don't like it. I'm so glad I'm an American. That's cool.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
The happiest day of the year for me is the day I return home. And I'm glad I live here. I would never live anywhere else. But good travel is... Culture shock is a constructive thing. This is a new thing I've been talking about lately. Culture shock is constructive. It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective, and it just needs to be curated.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And so you set up experiences, and then you provide a forum for people to share experiences. and compare notes. And we call this reflections times. And on my ideal tour, I'm not the teacher, I'm just the facilitator. It's happy hour before dinner, and we were just at a concentration camp memorial. Or we were just experiencing how the Dutch are preparing for a rising sea level.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Or we were just sitting in the city hall in Oslo talking with Norwegians who happily pay more taxes because they see the government as a great way to tackle challenges that should be tackled collectively. And let people share their thoughts and their impressions and what they're finding stressful and what they're finding beautiful. For me, that's very, very rewarding as a teacher.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It becomes a transformational experience. And to me, there's two kinds of travel. There's escape travel and there's reality travel. I want to go home a little bit different, a little less afraid, a little more thankful, a little better citizen of the planet.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Yeah, and I would temper that by reminding people my beat is Europe. And I do Europe because it's the biggest market, it's where my roots are, and it's a beautiful springboard to the rest of the world. My favorite country is India, but I don't teach India. I teach Europe as the gateway to the world.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
That's a way that pragmatically I can reach more people than to talk to the adventurers that are trekking in Nepal or something like that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
well you know it seems like it has but i don't get demoralized by that. People have a choice. You can have La La Land.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
You can go to your grave with a big barbecue apron like a Budweiser beer commercial, you know, that life was good for you and not learn anything and really think you're the center of this planet, which is fine, you know, but I've just got this curiosity to get to know the rest of the world and to contribute in a way that makes the world a better place.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And I love these kind of quotes like Thomas Jefferson wrote, travel makes a person wiser if less happy. And I've always had this hunger to be more engaged, not necessarily more happy, but more engaged. I always use this anecdote. I was really involved in the Sandinistas and the Contras and all that. That's kind of where I got politicized.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Exactly, yeah. And I just felt responsible as an American taxpayer to know. I came to a conclusion then that every bullet that flies has my name on it. And we've got to kill innocent people occasionally to be safe. And I'm not idealistic that way. You've got to have a military. And there's collateral damage. But I'm responsible. And I wanted to get out there in person and see what's going on.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And I started traveling with that in mind. And I realized, whoa, this is more complicated than I realized. And I was very inspired by Archbishop Oscar Romero, this liberation theology stuff.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
Right. Well, I was due for a vacation. I was fried. I was tired. I wanted to go somewhere with my family, and we were going to dream in about Mazatlan. And to be honest, a pristine stretch of tropical beach swept free of local riffraff, little plastic straps on our wrists so we can get all the drinks we want without dirtying our fingers with the local currency.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
It was going to be a beautiful, hedonistic, relaxing vacation on a beach in Mexico. And then my friend said, it's the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Romero. We're going to march on the streets of San Salvador. You want to join us? And I told my family, I'm going to be no fun on the beach.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
And it was one of the most valuable travel experiences I've ever had to be there on the streets of San Salvador, eating beans and rice one day and rice and beans the next, covered with bug bites, marching with peasants to remember a slain leader. I was in my glory as a traveler there. It added so much to my enthusiasm for getting out and embracing the world in all of its truth.
The Daily
'The Interview': Rick Steves Refuses To Get Cynical About the World
But that's a choice you have to make. And these days, Lulu, I'm in this sort of thing in my teaching where I remind people there's three kinds of travel. You can travel as a tourist, a traveler, or a pilgrim. And you don't need to be all of one or all of the other. And what I like to do is free people and inspire people to mix it up.