Rick Steves’ presentation for PBS in Naples, Florida
According to his own website “guidebook author and travel TV host Rick Steves is America’s most respected authority on European travel”. It should come as a huge relief to Rick that we agree.
When we learned he was coming to speak at a fundraiser for the local PBS station we got tickets for the event. We showed up early to get front row seats and give Rick the chance to easily introduce us to the crowd. (He failed to do that which could be related to the fact that he doesn’t know we exist or perhaps for other reasons…)
We admire Rick Steves for making European travel more approachable for many Americans, for his philanthropy and social activism including his advocacy for the legalization of marijuana. We aren’t waiting to legally take a hit of anything that smokes but like it that he speaks from personal conviction instead of only protecting his business interests.
But we do not agree wholeheartedly with all of Rick’s basic tenets of travel.
Rick Steves’ basic tenets of travel we agree with
Develop an itinerary before you go: We never travel without doing this and have often used various Rick Steves guidebooks to help us in our planning. Many bloggers extol the virtues of traveling without a plan and allowing for serendipity. That’s just “dippity” to us. Who wants to fly all night and get to a city then start looking for a place to stay? Someone, but not us.
Failing to plan can mean lost opportunities, needlessly wasted time and money and general inefficiency resulting in getting less out of a trip that you otherwise would have. Here are our suggestions for trip planning.
You can afford to travel: Over the years we have had friends and family members assume we have spent literally 10s of thousands of dollars more than we have for our travels. We have no idea where they think that money might have come from. But we do know that if you really watch airfare sales, use point programs well and travel in off-peak season you can travel well within a budget. Generally when someone says they “can’t afford to travel” they are operating on assumptions and have not done their research on how to lower costs.
You can get by speaking English in most of the world: Rick isn’t proud that he and his fellow Americans tend to only speak our own language but he does correctly point out that at least it’s a fairly universally spoken language in the world of travel. His example was “If a Hungarian and a Swiss person meet on a hiking trail what language do you think they would speak to each other”? Our answer was – “What’s a Hungarian doing on a hiking trail and does the person from Switzerland have any chocolate”? The correct answer was English.
This is not to say that travelers should not learn at least some basic phrases for countries they are visiting, it’s just to say don’t stay home because you only speak English.
Pack light: It’s important to note that “agree with ” and “adhere to” are not synonymous. We agree that packing light is the ideal.
Blonde is, however, an international offender in this category despite her best intentions. But the less you have to schlep the better. Rick travels only with a small backpack which he enthusiastically markets when he speaks. His standard is one few ladies of undisclosed ages could achieve without undue personal sacrifice but the overall goal is laudable.
Where we are not in agreement with Rick Steves
Modest locally owned hotels are the best choice: Rick Steves has a big business selling group tours. Part of how the hotels are described is: “Be prepared for stairs — hundreds of them. Many of our hotels don’t have elevators…one more reason to pack light and be in good shape. Private bathrooms are the norm, but on a couple of tours a small chance exists that for one or two nights your bathroom may be down the hall.” It’s also stipulated that the hotels may lack air conditioning.
Um, no.
If you can’t sleep comfortably (which often entails air conditioning) and with a private bath we aren’t interested. We drank the local hotel Kool-aid many times but almost invariably regretted it. Hotels that are part of groups or chains (egad!) are held to certain standards and generally have point programs that allow us to get value beyond the stay. They also are likely to have a concierge, decent security, up-to-date electricity and plumbing and (forgive us for this) wi-fi. What’s not to like? We can look for local authenticity outside the hotel when we’re in a good mood after a comfortable night’s sleep!
Eat where the locals eat: Admittedly we’re a bit mixed on this but think that in general locals you encounter traveling, such as cab drivers, eat where it’s cheap and convenient. We do not think they are dining in little culinary pearls they’ve discovered.
No, we are not about to go to Italy and look for an Olive Garden (other than in the literal sense) but why not eat where cooks are doing interesting things with the regional cuisine? We have used a lot of restaurants Rick has recommended in his guidebooks and have had good success but they were vetted first by him or someone on his team.
For every local goodie there’s a local spot with a dirty kitchen and serving leftover ingredients. We prefer to do our research ahead of time, particularly for dinners.
Lunch is where we are more apt to just go somewhere we see a lot of local people sitting with food. (It took us years to learn the “with food” part of that sentence. We used to sit down at cafes with lots of people only to realize, when 40 minutes without food had gone by, that those people only had drinks, not meals.)
Get some rest, Rick!
We really enjoyed hearing Rick Steves. He reminded us of some of the more adventuresome ways we used to travel and got us all whipped up with enthusiasm for going to Europe.
But Rick looked very tired.
We hope he got a nice night of sleep at the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Florida where the event was held and where we suspect they have air conditioning and private baths!
We can all compromise our principles once in a while…