The Interview - Rick Steves Refuses to Get Cynical About the World [Re-Run]

Episode Date: June 28, 2025

As you set out on your summer travels, near or far, we are re-sharing an episode that we originally published on December 14, 2024. The guidebook writer and TV personality reflects on his long career, his cancer diagnosis and the transformative power of travel. 

Hey, it's Lulu. We're off this week, but I'm excited to share a conversation that I had last year with travel guru Rick Steves. We talked about his early days spreading the gospel of transformative travel, the difference between being a tourist and being a traveler, and why he thinks going out into the world is more important than ever right now. Also, an update to Rick's story. After we spoke, he announced that he is, in his words, now cancer-free. If you're heading out on vacation this summer, or even if you're just sitting at home dreaming about where you might want to go next, it's a really great listen. Enjoy it, and we'll be back with a new episode next week. From the New York Times, this is The interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro.

The minute I left university, I put on a backpack and went to see the world. I climbed the Andes in Ecuador. I taught English in Cambodia. I spent months visiting monasteries in Tibet. It was the most transformative period of my life. Lately though, I feel like my travel mojo is gone. Instead of traveling to discover, I now travel to retreat. I'm often overwhelmed by the demands of daily life, so when it's time for vacation, I choose a destination that doesn't ask too much of me and I don't give much back. Rick Steves has been helping millions of people,

including people like me, expand their travel horizons since he was in his 20s. The prolific guidebook writer and beloved PBS personality believes that travel can make not only the world a better place, but you a better person. He's 69 now, but his upcoming book is about how it all began, with a trip he took after university like me. It's called On the Hippie Trail, and it's the journal entries he wrote as he traveled the 3,000 miles from Istanbul to Kathmandu in 1978. It's full of the joy of exploration and discovery. And I wanted to talk to him to relearn how to feel that sense of communion with the world. Here's my conversation with travel guru, Rick Steves. I was reading your newest book, which are the diaries of a trip that you took in 1978

when you were 23 years old on what was called the hippie trail. When you re-read those diaries, what did it evoke in you when you looked at that 23-year-old with the hindsight of age now? What did that make you feel? 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. And when I read it, it was really insightful. If I 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 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. 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. This was, this is a vivid trip.

So reading this book really brought me back because when I was 23, I went on my own version of the hippie trail and I went to different countries. I went to Asia, but the thing that changed the course of my life happened there. I was in Vietnam, and it was the 20 year anniversary of the fall of Saigon. And I was not interested in journalism in any way, shape, or form.

And I happened to be at this bar called Apocalypse Now, which is named, of course, after the film. And I happened to run into a whole bunch of journalists that were there to commemorate the 20th anniversary that had covered the war. And I met them and hung out with them for a while. And that was my first exposure to journalism and being a foreign correspondent,

which is what ended up being my career. And so it resonated so much reading this, because through the journey, right, not everything ends up changing the course of your life, but the seeds of maybe what you're going to become, you can often find them when you have these incredible experiences. And I just found that to be true,

reading about 23-year-old Rick Steves. 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.

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 settle 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 gathering of journalists on an anniversary. That was a lucky break for you and it had a huge impact.

Absolutely serendipitous. It was just... It's serendipity. And you got to say yes to seren- first of all, you got to put yourself in a situation where you, you stumble onto serendipity. Little moments happen and these little moments as a travel teacher I draw from for the rest of my days. Travel teacher. is that how you

see yourself? Yeah, for many, many years when I cross a border, they say, what's your occupation? You know, 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 is, 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. 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 gonna 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. And my heart was really in the travel more than in the piano teaching. And 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 travelers slide club. It met the first Sunday of every month. I had an 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. 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, 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. 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

3000 miles that Europe had to offer. And you know, you start the trip and people are wide eyed and, and don't know the drill. And then you teach them, you create a sprit of core, 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. 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.

Rick, in those days when you were doing that sort of circumambulation of Europe, what did you learn about Americans abroad? What did you see in having these experiences over and over and over again with your countrymen in Europe? I had this sense that people were threatened by other cultures 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, 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. 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. 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 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. And so you set up experiences and then you provide a forum for people to share 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, 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. 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. And so that's what you'd say the Rick Steves philosophy is. It's to take something and come back, change for the better by it. 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. 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. I do want to pick up on this idea of escape travel versus reality travel. That's a really nice framing because I hear you

making the case for a particular type of immersive respectful kind of travel and I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that that's not how most people approach their vacations. I'm thinking of especially the modern idea of going somewhere simply because you're going to be able to post on social media about it. What do you think of that approach, of how things seem to have changed now, where the performative nature of travel has taken over, or has it? 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. 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. 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. In the 1980s during the civil wars in Central America. 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 got to kill innocent

people occasionally to be safe. And I'm not idealistic that way. You got to have a military. 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. 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. Which is a Catholic idea that you help the poor, that you try and give liberation through spiritual teaching. It was very popular in the 1980s and he was assassinated.

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 riff-raff, little plastic straps on our wrists so we can get all the drinks we want without dirtying our fingers with the local currency. 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. 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. 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. And that's an opportunity that even tourists, 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. You said three ways that you can travel. You can travel as a tourist, a traveler, and then the third one was as a pilgrim. Explain to me the third one. I get the distinction between the first two.

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. 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's gonna do is raise their arms to the heavens, but I feel like doing that one 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. It changes you.

And it becomes pretty clear when you travel that we're all in this together. I'm listening to you talk and the philosophy is beautiful. This idea of communion with the world, with connection with other people. But there is a shift happening in the world right now, I think, towards isolationism, nativism, a fundamental suspicion of difference. We're in a world that travels more than it ever has, and yet what seems to be happening is not what you would hope. And I'm just wondering what you make of those changes. Mm-hmm.

More people are traveling than ever before, but there's not more transformational travel than ever before. There's this superficial Instagram 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? 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? 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. So they could get a photograph of them at the right hour

with the Matterhorn. So we're making a platform so they can 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. But isn't that what a guidebook is, ultimately? It's, I mean, they're just placing value on a different thing, which is an image and a place.

But I mean, a guidebook points you to a certain direction and tells you this is the thing that you need to go do in this particular place. 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. Do you think social media is ruining travel? I'm thinking about how most people I know, especially younger people, get their travel recommendations from TikTok

and from Instagram. Yeah, I don't think it's ruining travel, but I do think there's, 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. And younger travelers, I think, are more enamored with that crowdsourcing. 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 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 got this problem now Lulu that everybody's going to the same places at the same time. This is becoming its own little, making it more and more extreme of a storm of public understanding. I mean, we've seen protests in Europe over tourism. Barcelona residents this summer were squirting visitors with water guns and chanting things like, tourists go home.

And this is driven to a certain degree by social media and bucket list travel, and everybody has to do this, now 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.

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 a book in advance, or you're not gonna get in there. 10 minute, 15 minute walk away, the Baths of Caracalla are just as impressive

an example of Roman engineering. 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. 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. Is there anywhere that you regret having popularized? 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. 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-clumb, everything grown right there. And 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 I go there and it's crowded, admittedly. It's commercial, It's greedy.

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, you know, 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. They're just, they turn their back on their vineyards that they inherit from their parents. They used to be beloved.

So wait, I'm hearing a lot of different things. Yeah. How do you feel about that transformation? Because there's the good stuff, they're affluent, but then there's the bad stuff that their way of life is changing, which is at the center of this industry that you've given your life to. 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. 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. That's so interesting that this is that you have to consider that now. Yeah. And but generally, I 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. 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 by 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.

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 nother 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. I am gonna talk to you again, but in the time we have left, I want to return to the question of the world and how it's changing, because you responded to my question about nativism and fear of difference by talking about social media. But I think there's something more fundamental going on. I mean, I've sat at the foot of melting glaciers in the Andes with someone who is seeing it and says, I don't believe in climate change. Yeah. Perhaps you might be overstating the transformative power

of this thing that you do. 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. 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 kinds 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 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. 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. 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 just, I'm just really thankful for that kind of a souvenir. thankful for that kind of a souvenir. After the break, I call Rick back to ask about what he's sacrificed for a life on the road. 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 Last Supper"] Good morning. Hey Lulu, good morning. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? It's early in Seattle. So far, I'm great. I see that you're at home right now.

I want to ask you about your home because you have traveled all over the world and yet you have always lived in a place where you were born. I was born in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised.

I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised.

I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I was raised in a place where I was raised. I want to ask you about your home because you have traveled all over the world and yet you have always lived in the place where you grew up. Why is that? 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? Oh my goodness, that's an amazing view. And indeed, I can see your school. This is the field I was just had to run around that track when I was in seventh grade. Most people would not want that memory. No, it memory infused. 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. Rick, I did want to ask you about something pretty significant in your life. You've been very open about receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

How are you doing? Well, thank you. I'm doing as well as you can be doing when you have prostate cancer. How are you doing? Well, thank you. I'm doing as well as you can be doing when you have prostate cancer. You know, a month ago I said goodbye to my prostate and I see it as a journey. I don't speak the language. 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. You know, my prognosis is very good 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 gonna get through it. And people are coming out of the woodworks telling me about their experience. 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 and they were fiddling around trying to find the right kind of anti-depressant 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, they will be more open about it and sharing and not be alone and afraid, but be in community. And 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. Has it given you more of an urgency 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.

I just want to stay for a moment with that idea of regret. I mean, what happened, the sacrifices of being on the road so much, because you have spent such a huge portion of your life going out elsewhere and discovering and exploring. 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 not, it's a choice you have to make. I would love to be the person I was before I was a travel writer. I would have had a very, very beautiful life being a piano teacher, 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

And this is a path that is, it's a mission for me. 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. And in a way, I'm sad about it. But again, you have to make a choice. Well, it's interesting you use two different words. One is mission and one a choice. Well, it's interesting, you use two different words, one is mission and one is choice. I mean, mission sounds like it's a calling and that it doesn't feel like it's a choice, that it doesn't feel like it's optional.

That's interesting, yeah. And it relates to this idea that you have talked about with me, which is being a pilgrim. It seems like the way that you view your career has been infused with this sense of a calling, of something greater than yourself that you're trying to do. 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. If you couldn't travel anymore or you had to travel differently because of age or sickness or something else, do you worry that that would be a big identity shift for you? 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 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. 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 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. I would just be thankful that I had enough vigor left in me and that I could enjoy it fully. I took a one-week hike around Mount Blanc with my girlfriend, Shelley, and 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 gonna write a book about it. 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, 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'm going to Europe, should I skip and what place can't I miss? I've stumped Rick Steves. 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 skip. 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 places 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. 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 got to find those kind of moments.

Rick Steves, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. It's been a delight, Lulu, talking to you. And happy travels. That's Rick Steves. His new book on the hippie trail publishes early next year. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. It was edited by Annabel Bacon, mixing by Afim Shapiro and Sophia Landman.

Original music by Dan Powell, Alicia Be'etoop, Pat McCusker, Leah Shaw Dameron, and Marian Lozano. Photography by Devin Yalkin. Our senior booker is Priya Mathew and Seth Kelly is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Barelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Maddy Masiello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schuman, and Sam Dolnick. If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to The Interview wherever you get

your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash the interview and you can email us anytime at the interview at nytimes.com. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro and this is the interview from the New York Times.