Rick Steves' Europe: Rick Steves (2021)

26:23And did you structure the book in just a clear way? It was like country by country. Is that how you organized it? In the beginning, the book was two halves. It was like two books bound together. The first half was all the skills, packing, hotels, eating, transportation, communication, you name it. And then the last half were individual chapters on my 20 favorite discoveries. These are the back doors. So I didn't need to write a guidebook to Paris or to Ireland. I just need to share my discoveries. And for a long time, I kind of almost prided myself and not having to bog down on, you know, phone numbers and prices and hours and that kind of stuff.

27:03I just wrote creative articles to turn people on to my favorite corners, the south coast of Portugal, Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, Arrow Island up in Denmark, you know, the Mosul River Valley instead of the Rhine for your castles in Germany. And did you get it formally published? Did you start to distribute to bookstores? Tell me what the book looked like and how you made that happen. The book looked so simple that once it was already sold, people, when I tried to get publicity, they thought it was a pre-publication edition. They would say, when's the book coming out? This is the book. It was a very simple thing.

27:39Was it self-published, by the way? It was self-published. I didn't know what an ISBN was, so it didn't have an ISBN, which was stupid. You Xeroxed the pages and stapled them together? My girlfriend typed it for me. My roommate was an artist. I gave him the photographs and he sketched them really nicely and then it was a time when you type and you correct by typing it on another piece of paper with a glue stick you glue that strip over the line that has the mistake so it was a lovingly put together pile of 180 pages and I took it up to the publisher and I dug up all my money and it cost a couple thousand dollars and I got a couple thousand books came back a few weeks later, picked them up in my Oldsmobile station wagon drove home.

28:25And now I had the first self-published edition of Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door. And then after that, I finally got a publisher, which was a blessing. And how much were you charging for the book in that first year? I think it was$4.95. And so you were just hawking them yourself. You were going into bookstores and saying, hey, I've got these books, or you were going to giving lectures and offering the book for sale. And then I would have the books in my car. And it was literally the books in the back of my car. And I remember a few occasions I was giving a talk and, oh, no, you can't sell anything on the premises here.

28:59Okay. After the talk, I'd say, if you want to buy the book, I'll be out of my car. And it's just five bucks, you know. And then it's just bam, bam, bam, selling like hotcakes. And I got to the point where I would get bigger and bigger classes and I would sell the book for, and the book got bigger and bigger and bigger, but I kept it at$5 for a long time just because I wanted to move those books. And I knew, though, that my audience was my parents' age. for many years. Now I'm older, so I don't have audience that's my parents' age anymore. But in the beginning, I was always thinking, I'm talking to my parents and their friends.

29:32And when you were, you know, leading these lectures and talking about going to Europe, I mean, were you just saying, look, you can do this. I don't speak French, German, Dutch. You can get a little guidebook. You can make your, you know, you can make it work. I think that's part of my, how I was successful. Part of my appeal is I'm not a scholar. You know, I mispronounce the words. I don't know how to, I don't say Paris, you know. I say Paris. I speak only English. You know, remember I was interviewing my students. That was a fear and apprehension. I don't speak the language. And I tell them, well, neither do I.

30:07And I write guidebooks, I make TV shows, I lead tours, and I have great vacations going to Portugal. So I have to imagine, after you publish Europe Through the Back Door, self-publish, I think the first edition came out in 1980. Is that right? Yes, that's right. I'm assuming that it was clear to you because you had established a business, right? You called it Europe Through the Back Door a few years earlier. It was like you probably filed an LLC. But it's not clear to me that you thought this was still going to be the way you were going to make a living up until 1980. I don't know if I filed anything.

30:42I'm kind of laughing at that because I was so klutzy then. I was just having fun teaching and selling books out of the back of my car when I had books to sell. But, you know, when I think back on it, friends and loved ones and relatives give me these ideas, and my gut response is, no, that's crazy. And then I think about it, and it's actually a great idea. And a good friend of my parents, Patty Price, said, you should take bus tours around. And I just thought, that sounds horrible. And then I thought, God, there's huge efficiency in sharing the rental cost of a minibus. And I'd love to, you know, I'd love to help organize people's trip plans at the table and the dormitory over lunch.

31:18and I'd love to take people around Europe on these minibus tours. And so I, you know, I was giving these talks and it was very easy to talk to people who were enamored with me because of my fun stories I could tell about traveling. You know, it was kind of natural. They'd be interested in traveling with me if I made that possible. And I did. And the minibus, there was no promises. The minibus tours were like, it was like a commune on wheels. It was not profitable except to cover my costs so I could stay over there longer. And, you know, everybody had to almost sign a little agreement that says they wouldn't complain about the lousy accommodations.

31:58It was so upfront. So you would basically, would you drive the bus? Yeah, I drove the bus. That was a beautiful formula. When people want to get into the travel business and make some money, I say, you know, I think the best thing is just to have a forte. Just, you know, you are Mr. Scandinavian. or you are Mr. Baja or Miss Baja, California, and just do that specialty with eight people on a minibus. And the economy of sharing a vehicle with eight people is wonderful. The fact that you don't have to take care of a driver and a guide, but the driver can be the guide is wonderful. And that was kind of my original formula there.

32:38And this worked really well at the time. I would actually have a day where I would announce my minibus tour plans for the next year. And I would give the talk. I would say, okay, I'm going to explain the tours, and then I'll take deposits for the tours on that day. And I'd have, you know, four or five tours that I would do with the minibus. I was always the guide and the driver. And that night, all those tours would be full. They would sell out. They would sell out that one night. And it was like, what, 10 or 12 people per tour? Eight people per tour. It was usually 22 days. Back then, I only did 22-day tours.

33:14I was on a one-man crusade to help Americans have a longer vacation. I was just amazed that we put up with such short vacations. And so it was 22 days in Britain, 22 days in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It's funny because now, you know, 40 years later, it's evolved where that's way too long for the American market. And the longest tour is 20 days, and our best-selling tours are 10 or 12 days. So I'm trying to picture this. I mean, you are like in your late 20s, you're offering these minibus tours with eight people and you're driving the minibus and you're the guide and you only speak English.

33:50So, I mean, that's a lot to take on. Like you didn't have a local guide with you. It was just you and eight people. Oh, yeah, and I didn't have the sophistication or the appreciation of a local guide or the money for a local guide, so we were just bumbling around together. You know, I remember we would do the craziest things. We'd go through the... There's an oak forest where Admiral Nelson used to get his masts for his ships in southern Wales. I forget the name of the forest of something, very romantic. And we would take turns sitting up on the top of the bus on the luggage rack, and a couple of people up on the top of the luggage rack just so they could look up at the oak forest as we rolled through it slowly.

34:31Every night in the youth hostel, we'd pull out the map and debate. We would actually debate what we're going to do the next day. And this was a formative time for me as a tour organizer because, again, I was learning what the market wanted. I was learning how many hill towns can a mortal tour find worth climbing up? How many Madonnas and children can a mortal tourist be excited about. After a while, it doesn't matter if it's Raphael's greatest, they're going to stay in the bus and do something else because they're burned out on Madonnas and children. It's interesting. I remember, this is this business kind of philosophy, I think, of mine.

35:10I would have the handbooks for those tours laying around in my lectures. And the handbooks were designed so people could be independent in the context of the tour. There was always this focus on it. But he got a handbook who joined the tour. That's right, yeah. And time and time again, and I was so impressed by how honest my students were in these classes I gave. I never checked ID for checks when people were giving me any money for anything, and I just didn't need to. They're just great people. But they were stealing this book, these books, and I thought these tour handbooks are driving decent people to theft.

35:45They need to be available for sale. So the next year is sort of a radical thing to do. I put everything I knew about doing the tour in the handbook for the tour intending to give people the information necessary so they could do the Rick Steves tour without Rick Steves they could buy the book for five bucks and do it on their own and some people said oh you're giving away all your secrets no it was a great thing because it turned people on to the tours and it opened up my teaching to people that wouldn't take the tours anyway and then I could stand in front of these groups of people who were taking my class for free and say I don't care.

36:18You can take my tour or you can buy this book and do the tour without me, but just do it and do it right. When did you start to think of yourself as the real deal? Because I think a lot of people, including myself, have had and sometimes still have imposter syndrome. We were like, how do people listen to me? When did when did you start to think, God, I'm not an expert, but. Right. Well, you kind of you kind of grow into it. Yeah, I remember a big breakthrough for me was Arthur Fromer. I mean, he was the granddad of all this. He's the guy that inspired the democratization of international travel, you know.

36:57You're up on$5 a day, right? His classic book. Yeah. And I was just a kid. And I mean, I must have been right after I self-published my book. And he, I didn't even know he knew who I was. He had me fly all the way to New York and be on his radio show. Wow. Or it was a TV show, I think, maybe. And he put his, you know, he kind of effectively put his arm around me and he said, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet the next Temple Fielding, Eugene Fodor and Stephen Birnbaum of the travel publishing world. Those were the big household words in the 50s and 60s. Fielding guides, Fodor guides, Birnbaum guides.

37:34And eventually, I mean, you would do your own like Rick Steves guides because you'd get a publisher and start publishing them. But I mean, for a while, I guess you were pretty much hawking that first book on your own, right? Yeah. And it was sort of this – it was like this big business that was just a little kernel and it was just ready to burst out because there was such a market for it if it was designed and what do you call scaled up properly. What about your personal life? Were you married at that point in the 1980s? Yes, I was married. I forget. I remember my class was Wednesday nights, and I got married on a Saturday and a Sunday, of course.

38:17So I remember giving a talk one Wednesday and saying, I'm going to get married this weekend. That whole next week was dedicated to getting married. And then the next Wednesday, I was back in the University of Washington giving the experimental college class. So I guess that's a little indication that I was focused on my business quite a lot. And my wife was a very supportive and beautiful partner for that period of my life. And then I got this complexity, you know, a growing family and kids and also a business that was just taken off. And my heart was in two places at the same time. And it sounds like it was still a regional business.

38:55It's still like Pacific Northwest. Like Rick Steves is the guy in the Pacific Northwest. I remember the day, I remember I was walking to the book fair once in San Francisco, and my publisher put his arm around me, and he said, Rick, if you're ever going to get anywhere, you've got to have more titles. Because then I just had two or three titles. And I thought, oh, more titles, that sounds like a lot of work. And then I had to branch beyond that favorite places, essays, and generic travel skills into specifics. Where are you going to sleep in Brussels? Where are you going to eat in Copenhagen? you know, what time is the museum open in Dublin?

39:32And that was a lot of work, and that was a big change. But that's what people wanted, and that's what we could offer in a unique Rick Steves kind of way. So then we embarked on making all of these guidebooks to different countries and different regions and ultimately different cities. But from 80 on, after I had the guidebook, the bus tours were funding the idealism of the business. then I started to get people working with me. And that was kind of a breakthrough. You know, you got a book, you got an idea, and you need to realize it's not a one-man show. When we come back in just a moment, how Rick went from selling books out of his car to hosting an incredibly popular TV show, and how that success and all the work that went with it would wind up taking a big toll on his family life.

40:26Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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43:58Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 1991, and from his home in Edmonds, Washington, Rick Steves is running a pretty successful travel business, writing guidebooks and doing small tours of Europe for months at a time. And then comes a pretty important turning point. He starts making a TV show called Travels in Europe with Rick Steves. Tell me how that began. I mean, did you find a production company and have them follow you through Europe? I mean, how did that idea even come about? You know, when you just said that, I'm just thinking, I am such a reluctant, I'm sort of, in a way I'm eager, and I'm just like an Energizer bunny about all this.

44:44But in another way, I'm sort of like digging my heels in like a stubborn dog and saying, no, you know, some loved one says you should make tours and take people around in a minibus. No. And then I do that. And then somebody says, you should write a book. And I say, no. And then somebody, actually a whole bunch of people in the late 80s were coming to me and saying, you should make a TV show. Yeah. I thought, no way. But then I thought, these are smart people. And they've worked with other people, made shows. They've got a track record of success. And they see something in this. And I thought, well, I'll give it a whirl.

45:13So the idea was you'd make a TV show where you'd be touring cities in Europe and kind of taking us with you on the journey. But how? I mean, how would you, like, how are you going to, like, finance it? What were you going to? Well, that was the trouble. I mean, everything I had done up until now had been no finance necessary. I'm just, I'll give a free, gather 10 people together. I'm there all day giving you a talk, you know. But this was different because you had to have a funder. You had to, it's expensive. Production company, yeah. It's a huge investment of time. And for me, it was an investment of time.

45:47Do I really want to take all that time away from researching my guidebooks and dedicated to making TV shows where I'm not learning anything, you see. When I'm researching, I'm learning. I'm contributing. It's a huge practical investment in my program of who I am as a travel teacher. Sure. The TV show, it takes six days to produce a half-hour TV show, and you learn nothing during that. I mean, I always thought, oh, I could learn while I'm there. No, it's just so all-consuming. You're just there waiting for the jackhammer to stop, trying to remember your lines, waiting for the clouds to go away and then saying it.

46:22And then you go to the next place and you do it. And after six days, if all goes well, you have a show. But how did you find, I mean, how did you even begin the process? Did you find a production company and then start to pitch the show? What did you do? No, I didn't want to do it. They found me and I did it. This was a small production company. They were called Small World Productions. Small World Productions, yeah. And they were, a lot of people had been contacting me. There was this flurry of interest in the late 80s. And I was skeptical and I felt like, well, I can actually play hard to get because I don't want to do this.

46:55And they were really smart, good people, and they knew what I did. They had been followers of mine. You know, they knew my program. They drank the Rick Steves syrup through the back door Kool-Aid and they wanted to share it on public television. And I said, OK, if you guys think you can do it, I'm with you. And I was basically a hired hand. I was the host. So they owned the whole thing and they hired you as the talent, let's say. Yeah. One of their friends had a few thousand dollars that he could be the funder. And we did a pilot and I look at it now and it seemed kind of gawky, but at the time it was good enough to get the show off the ground.

47:34And what, you make a pilot and pitch the idea to public TV stations? Yeah, when you make a TV show for public television, you need a station to be your presenting station. And Seattle opted out for some reason, so Oregon took it up. And Oregon Public Broadcasting, OPB, all over the country now, you know, 30 years later, people think I'm from Portland because my show gets the little OPB jingle. And they presented it to the system, and a few channels picked it up. and if it works well, there's a buzz, and other channels pick it up the next time around. But what that ended up doing was kicking off a series, and we did five series with Small World, and I remember it was expensive.

48:19Every dissolve was a financial decision. I remember they had to go to an editing suite and just have forever dissolve. Right, an avid sweep, right? Yeah. Yeah, and a camera was hugely expensive. Now anybody can afford a camera, but back then you took out a bank loan to have a camera. Yeah. So this was really, I mean, this production company, they had this idea. You were the face of it, but it wasn't your. Wasn't mine. No. The only pay I was getting was the exposure, I suppose, to the public and the chance to say, and he writes a guidebook. So at the end of the show, he writes a cool book. And if you like the show, you like the book, you buy that.

48:55And then Small World would make a little money. And I mean, that was kind of risky, even a great risk, because you were essentially giving them the IP. I mean, they owned the intellectual property of this, and it could have worked entirely in their favor and not in your favor. I had no option. I mean, they knew how to do it. I didn't. I didn't have any capital. And for me, it was an adventure. It was one of those things that if an opportunity comes along, say yes. I had the energy, and it turned out to be frustrating because I wanted to be more than what they wanted me to be. What did they want you to be versus what you wanted you to be?

49:38They wanted me to be an obedient host that would learn his lines and stay out of the way. And I had a teaching agenda. They had a let's stay in business agenda, and I had a teaching agenda. So they wanted to produce shows that would be pleasant to watch and popular. And I wanted to produce shows that would teach the Rick Steves style of travel. But, I mean, in 1991, you were not the kind of typical television host. You know, you've got this, you know, kind of nerdy, earnest thing going. And which, of course, today, that's why people love you. But then, like, you know, people were going for like the, you know, the deep bassy voice like that, you know, that kind of.

50:27So, I mean, I'm just curious why they thought you were the guy to be the face of travel. Well, if there wasn't public television, I don't think anybody else would have taken a look at me. But public television was the domain of the Bob Rosses and the Mr. Rogers and the Rick Steves, I think. And we were all getting started back. We were doing it back then. we were part of the time. I look at it and I think, boy, that was dorky. But it's me. It's honest. It's authentic. And it's driven by a passion for travel. And we all were true blue for public television. And it's just hard to have it. I've got a lot of friends now that are travel teachers that are trying to break through with a TV show on public television.

51:09I don't know how you do it. I mean, I'm very lucky that I had the breaks that I had way back then. I mean, the station's got it for free, because you guys were handling the underwriting, and you got some publicity. And this turned you into a celebrity. Yeah. Like kind of quickly, right? You know, one thing I've had as a business sort of value is be other people's cash cow. Everybody is struggling. Everybody is desperate to be viable from a business point of view. And if all you are is your own cash cow, nobody's going to want to talk to you. But if you honestly are other people's cash cow, then you become a key player for all these organizations because you're making them money.

51:50And I'm a cash cow for my publisher. I do a lot of things for my publisher that while other writers just complain that their publishers don't promote them properly, I realize, no, I've got to do my own song and dance, and my publisher appreciates that, and I pay for it. And I benefit from it. And from a television point of view, I was Mr. Pledge Drive right as soon as I could. You were raising money for stations all over the country. I was spending 20 days a year, 20 days on the road doing Pledge. And to this day, I mean, I just was talking to the people at public television a week or two ago, and they said nearly 20 % of all the money that they raised in Pledge this last quarter was from my show for the whole system.

52:34When did you first realize, because the show is, its debuts in 1991, and it's super fun to watch because it's so nerdy. And I love it. I love it for that reason. It's so, I mean, it's really special. When did you start, when did you first realize that people were recognizing you and going, hey, there's a, there's that guy from TV. Like, do you remember that feeling when that happened? Yeah, it was very, it was, I remember the first time I ever saw somebody with my book in Europe. I remember the first time people started recognizing me from the TV show. And then the first time people from the other hemisphere would know me from seeing the TV show in YouTube and other streaming ways.

53:19But yeah, over time that became more and more of a deal. I remember coming into a youth hostel high in the Alps and I was just checking for the guidebook information and dropping in. And the guy who ran the hotel said, oh, there's a Girl Scout group in the dining room and they'd love to see you because they're here with your book. And I came in, I just interrupted their dinner and they'd just go, oh, there's the guy we saw on TV. We saw his shows before we took our trip. And the Girl Scout leader says to the girls, girls, if it's not to your liking, and they all go, change your liking. And that's one of my slogans in my guidebook.

53:53If it's not your liking, change your liking. So they were true blue and honoring my little slogans without me even knowing it. And that's pretty fun when you work really hard to realize you're having an impact that way. Meantime, you're doing these shows, which is super labor-intensive. You are also going to Europe to lead tours. You're also updating your guidebooks. You're traveling around now doing fundraisers for public radio stations. And you've got a family at home. And I imagine you were away from home for months on end throughout the year. Yeah. When I think back on it, it was tough. I mean, I was, I needed two lives.

54:45And my, you know, I worked, a lot of people work hard and it takes a toll on their families. I worked hard and it was sort of addictive to be writing a business that was rising up and it was my dream. And it was also so enjoyable. And I loved parenting. I just, I was married to my work as well as to my family. and in that case, it didn't work well. And there were demands on being Rick Steves. People needed Rick Steves for a variety of reasons. And that was a big deal. In fact, my relationship with my son was difficult for several years because he really recognized that my public had hijacked his dad and his other friends had dads that didn't have a, quote, public.

55:40and I've had this attitude that if you've got an, I was going to say an adoring public but you know you've got fans who love your work Ricknicks they're everywhere Ricknicks yeah I mean I feel like you owe it to your public to take time and talk to them and to visit them in person and so it's a choice you make I mean I can imagine that that caused some tension or stress in your marriage with your wife. Yeah. She just was realizing, and I think her friends were helping her figure this out, that, you know, you've got to stop being in Rick's shadow. You know, she'd go to the grocery store and she'd buy the groceries and she'd sign the check and they'd go, oh, are you that Rick Steves?

56:26And I'm sure that gets really old because she's stuck with the kids and she's, you know, doing all the responsible things a parent should do. Not a mother, a parent should do and she was doing it pretty much alone. And I was doing the family thing a lot like my dad did. You know, my dad was out there being the big personality, conducting the band, you know, being everybody's favorite piano technician and going with the concerts. And my mom was at home making sure the books worked and the kids were getting their shots and all that kind of thing. So, you know, I was that was just a choice I made.

57:03And I don't know how else I could have done it, frankly. I went to the soccer games and the football games and I was very frustrated because I wanted to be working and I didn't want to be sitting there with the other parents watching the kids kick the ball and it was a difficult thing now my kids as adults now they're in their early 30s we have a beautiful relationship and they know I feel sad that there wasn't two of me and much of those years were the formative years in my business and we missed a lot of opportunities. On the other hand, we did a lot of great things too. And I wasn't, I just don't want somebody else to dictate what it takes to be a good dad.

57:56I had a little chip on my shoulder about that because I didn't feel like I needed to help the kids move into the dorm. You know, I mean, move into the dorm yourself. You know, I'm busy. And if that's wrong, well, that's not wrong. It's just one person's assessment of what it takes to be a good parent. But I just miss the joys, the little magic moments, you know. You can't. I'm pretty practical about the reality that you can't do it all. Yeah. So you did this first series, television series, with this production company for, I guess, five seasons. And then a couple years later, you relaunched the show as Rick Steves Europe, right?

58:39Also on public television. And this time it was your show, right? Right. And this was going to be different. This was going to be the way you wanted to do it. I suppose creative people have had that where they're in a band and they want to be the composer and the manager and create the vision and say what album they're going to do next and I got to the point with Small World where we had different visions and we weren't enjoying the collaboration and especially when you're making TV if you're not having fun in the field the product is going to suffer so I wanted to have fun in the field And I wanted to be, to be totally honest, I just wanted to be in complete control.

59:25I knew what I wanted to make. Life is short. I'm spending a third of my time in Europe making TV. You see, my time in Europe is divided. It's basically a third involved with the tour program, a third involved in researching the books, and a third involved in producing the TV shows. And that's a big commitment. What's really remarkable to me is that a lot of people don't realize this. With all the television out in the world today, a lot of people don't really make that much money from TV. The TV in some ways is like a vehicle to promote other things you do. And my understanding of the way your business works is that television and then you started a public radio show, which you have a podcast and radio show and all this.

1:00:11You go to your web page, there's all this free content. And my understanding is that virtually all of your revenue comes from giving tours in Europe, Rick Steves tours that you no longer personally lead, but tours and books. That that is like the vast majority of your revenue. It's not the TV shows. It's not the radio stuff. It's not the content on your website. I think the worst thing I could do is charge for the TV show because then nobody would watch it. People couldn't afford to run it. I mean, public television doesn't have much money. And they have to choose. I mean, my show ran every night in Los Angeles for years, every night in prime time.

1:00:50Amazing. Because Los Angeles Public Television broke away from PBS because they couldn't afford the dues. KCET, right? KCET, yeah. And I was their favorite little guy for years. And it was free content for them that they liked and they just aired it. It was free. And they had a budget reality. and they said, well, we can do this and it'll cost us X or we can do this and it'll cost us nothing and everybody likes that and it's free, so let's do it. So as long as my shows are good and popular and free, we can do no wrong. That's why our show, it just has wheels and we work very hard, it's got legs.

1:01:26I mean, we work really hard to make the shows so they are evergreen and they get run a lot. We try to pack as much content in there so people can watch them several times and still get stuff out of it. And it works quite well. I mean, it's really an interesting model because the content isn't what drives the business. I mean, you know, you eventually, as you grew and grew, and I think you were doing, what, tours for like 30 ,000 people a year by 2019 or even more? In a normal year, we take 30 ,000 people and 1 ,200 tours. I mean, it's just unbelievable. So this is, you know, and so the content that you offer, because you can go to your website now and download apps that are free, right?

1:02:14You can download free guides, like audio guides. That is really just stuff you put out there. And I hope this doesn't sound cynical because I don't think this is how you think about it. But it really is a brilliant kind of free advertisement for the things you do sell. Yeah. So we spent a lot of money making this TV show. We've got every right to charge for this, but I would much rather have people run it and then say, how can he afford to do this? And then it becomes a part of their teaching arsenal. And then people like us more. And, you know, without even being aggressive and calculated, you know they're going to think good about Rick Steves.

1:02:54When you started to get more visible, when you started to become more visible and, you know, you're on the TV show and there are presumably more people interested in buying your books and then maybe even taking your tours, did you sit down and say, okay, this is the strategy? We're going to create a travel business and we're going to do all these different things? Or did the things that eventually happen kind of just happen haphazardly? No strategy at all. you got I always think I kind of like this idea of in Mexico there's a volcano that just appears you know just a little mountain grows out of the desert and then it grows bigger and bigger and all of a sudden it's a mountain didn't there was not any plan there and that's kind of the way we grew we become you know bigger and bigger and bigger and for me it's I never really wanted I got a business degree but I never really wanted to look in the book and say oh now you have a COO now you have a CS CFO.

1:03:48Now you have a CEO. I don't even know what that stuff is until it becomes apparent, oh, we need a guy to do this. And then they go, yeah, that's called a CFO. You know, and we're just, we're just kind of going, oh, that's why they have that. When we come back in just a moment, why Rick didn't want the company to grow too big or too fast. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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1:06:46Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So by the late 1990s and early 2000s, Rick Steves' books and tours and TV show were doing so well that he and his small team were actually a little worried. Oh, yeah. In fact, for years in my office, the big issue when we had our annual meetings and stuff was how do we not let growth brutalize us? because we are a gang of collaborators, of friends, like a big family in my business. And we're not as typical. We're privately held. I always say if we were publicly held, we'd have no choice. We'd have to profit maximize. But we have ideals, and it's not just making money, and we didn't want to sell our soul.

1:07:30We wanted to maintain who we were. And that's, I mean, I remember the... I just remember when I used to take the checks to the bank myself, you know, and it was not a sliver of that. But so now we've got the power to do things. We've got the power to, you know, when I want to make a show, a TV show about hunger, I dedicate a lot of time and a lot of money to go into Ethiopia and Guatemala and we finish it with, we don't have to worry about what does every dissolve cost. We make that show first class at whatever it costs and then it has an impact. So we're just really enjoying the success we've had because of the way it lets us do a good job in the tools we use to teach the public.

1:08:13Rick, I don't think many people dislike you. I think probably nobody does. But the rap on you, one of the criticisms of you, and you know this, is Rick Steves has ruined these beautiful, quaint places because there are just masses of American tourists coming through them and they're not special anymore. There's nothing hidden. Like writing about Europe through the back door in 1982 meant one thing, but today it's like every spot on earth, whether Cinque Terre in Italy or the coast of Donegal in Ireland, wherever it is, there's some influencer posing for photographs in a field, a field of lavender in Provence or whatever it might be.

1:08:55It's kind of a trope, but there's some truth to it, which is everything special has kind of been ruined. Yeah, I remember there's a cartoon when it was these whalers, and somebody goes, quick, harpoon it before it's extinct. And I thought, maybe that's a little bit like me. My job is to find these undiscovered places and tell everybody about them. And, you know, I've thought long and hard about this. You know, I'm the hired hand of my readers. I'm not in business to protect places that I discover. I remember once I went to a lecture with Arthur Fromer, you know, my mentor, my inspiration in so many ways, and somebody said, you know, what's your favorite place in Rome?

1:09:33And he said, I've got a favorite place in Rome. I just go there for myself. It's just, and he described it so beautifully and says, I don't tell any about it because I just want it to be for me. And I thought, Arthur, that's not what we're supposed to do as travel writers. We work really hard to find these great places and the very, very favorite places need to be more important than anything else shared with the public as long as that place can handle the public. You know, some places don't want the public or they can't handle the public and you would be wrong to promote it in a way that overwhelmed it and made everybody miserable, the locals and the tourists.

1:10:03But, you know, I'm not... I used to genuinely look for places off the beaten path, but I've been sort of... I've morphed into finding unique, authentic places that are accessible to the beaten path. That's what people want. And, you know, Paris is by no means undiscovered, but you can go to Paris in a way that you can enjoy it without it being a tourist trap. But you know, I wonder, Rick, I mean, you've probably seen how influencers on social media travel around Europe, around the world. And oftentimes, they're not really there to see it, but basically to be seen seeing it, right? Like they post pictures of themselves like posing in this or in that place sometimes as a way of getting travel perks, right?

1:10:50And I mean, you've seen those kinds of posts, right? Yeah. I mean, just last year, I was traveling around Europe, and it occurred to me, I went to like four places in a row where there was this Instagram phenomenon, this whatever it is, and I was in Muren in Switzerland, and people were lining up to stand on a stump in Muren to get a photograph with the famous mountain behind them, and they're literally lining up to get this photograph. And then I go to the Cinque Terre in the Italian Riviera. And there's five towns. Nobody goes to Monarola. And all of a sudden, everybody's going to Monarola and they're on the spit out in the waterfront in Monarola.

1:11:24And there's a big crowd on the spit in Monarola. And I ask my local friend, what is that? And he goes, that's the Instagram spot. Everybody goes there to get their picture. And they don't even know the name of the town, you know. And I'm just so thankful that I don't, you know, when I go to the Louvre, I'm not putting on my shoulder pads and getting a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa. I've got some serious art appreciation to do. So that's a different world, and those people are scrambling to make it in that world, and that's fine with me, but it has nothing to do with my work as a travel writer.

1:12:00Rick, for a 65-year-old guy, you are remarkably self-aware of your privilege, And you talked about what it means to be a white man in the world. And you have been pretty open about your progressive politics. You wrote a book called Travel is a Political Act in 2009. You've updated it, I think, just a couple of years ago. Do you think because you have spent so much time overseas seeing other cultures and talking to other people that it's actually made you more progressive politically. I love how travel opens you up to the world, and I think it does make you more progressive. I've always been aware that culture shock is a challenge for travelers, and just this last few months, I've been thinking about how culture shock is a positive thing.

1:13:01It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective, and I'm so aware of the gap between rich and poor. I'm so aware that my daily latte costs a day's wages for the less privileged 50 % of humanity. Half of our planet is trying to live on$5 a day. I think it's so interesting how you learn about your country a lot of times by leaving it and looking at it from a distance. So this is all, to me, my travel teaching has morphed. We talked about it in the very beginning. I said, European travel, cheap. It was just budget tricks. And since then, it has morphed gradually, gradually, gradually over the years.

1:13:45And now it is getting out of your comfort zone and gaining an empathy for people who live differently and see things differently than we do. You know, for somebody who really kind of started this as a passion project, right, Right. You never I can't imagine you ever anticipated getting rich off of what you do. But you did. I mean, this this is a business that in 2019 generated one hundred million dollars a year of staff of one hundred people. I mean, you probably have enough money to retire several times over. Is money and was money ever important to you? You know, is it important to you? Do you are you uncomfortable when I say, you know, you're a rich guy?

1:14:28No. When I was a kid, I wanted to get A's. As a businessman, you get A's by making money. I pride myself in paying my staff well and taking care of my staff and providing a working environment that helps people feel good about what they're doing and not just earning a paycheck but contributing in a positive way. And I like to make money. When I make money, I can do things that give me power to do stuff that I think is worthwhile. Like what? You know, I like to pay the rent for my local symphony. So my symphony has a tough time financially, like most symphonies. And I just thought, how about if one of your fans just paid the concert hall rental fee all year long, every year?

1:15:13So I've committed myself to doing that. I care about homelessness here. You know, I try to make sure people can find an affordable hotel when they're traveling in Europe. And I know a lot of people will never see their name on a plane ticket because life is just tough for them. and if we've got money for traveling, we should have money to house people here in our country. So I bought a 25-unit apartment building. That's in Edmonds, Washington, right? In Edmonds, yeah, north of Seattle. And I thought, a lot of well-off people have money as a nest egg sitting in the bank making interest. Why not take that capital and buy an apartment complex and then give it to the YWCA or some organization like that to house people, and you still own it, but your money is doing something good instead of sitting in the bank.

1:15:57eventually I just gave that building to the YWCA and now I go to sleep knowing that my hard work has resulted in the YWCA owning a 25-unit apartment complex that is housing 25 single moms, in this case people who have had problems with hard drug addiction and they were not able to be with their kids and now they can be with their kids. Do you give yourself some luxuries? Like when you travel, do you travel first class in a flat bed? I've never paid for anything other than economy on an airplane ticket if I get bumped. You just get upgraded because of your miles. No, I don't do miles. I've never collected miles or anything like that.

1:16:36I don't want to try to defend it because I don't know for sure why I don't like it, but I don't bother with miles. I don't like miles. So when you fly to Europe, you fly in economy class? Oh, yeah. I fly way back there. And somebody just sits next to you and they're like, wait, aren't you Rick Steves? I just sit there like a Norwegian Bernie Sanders with my noise reduction headphones on looking at my laptop for eight hours. How do you prevent people from giving you a bunch of free stuff or trying to influence your decision by making? Because you've got to be recognized now everywhere you go. It's not like you're an anonymous critic.

1:17:13I take it personally because you've got to earn your way into a Rick Steves book. You can't get in there because you gave Rick a nice bottle of wine or that your cousin's already in there. You've got to earn it. I owe that to my readers. So it is a constant battle. And I get free rooms when I travel. Nobody would charge me for a room when I go to their hotel because I send them a quarter of their business all year long. But I am very tuned in to the fact that I cannot let that corrupt me. If things go south, that hotel, even if it's run by friends of mine, is out of the book. And it breaks my heart.

1:17:49But I have had to drop hotels run by friends of mine because it's no longer what it used to be when it earned a spot in the book. Do you think that your audience is getting older or do you think that you are still appealing to – like if you're a young traveler today, like when I was 20 and I went all over Europe, why would you use a Rick Steves guide versus a Let's Go or a Rough Guide or Lonely Planet? Yeah, my staff is tuned into generational changes and so on. I find it kind of boring. Maybe it's because I'm the old generation, but I want to produce content. I think if content is fundamentally helpful and if it's well-designed and if it's affordable, the format can be devised after the fact to fit the consuming habits of this generation or that generation.

1:18:45So is it an electronic book or a book in print? Is it an app or all that kind of stuff? I don't know. I just want to produce the content. You know, I've been, you know, our guidebooks are the best. Before COVID hit, my publisher was so excited. He showed me the sales chart and 25 of the top 30 guidebooks published in the United States for Europe had Rick Steves on the cover. And I think that is more fundamental than what generation is using it. I mean, what's interesting about your business, right, is that it's a travel business, but it's around the name of this person, Rick Steves, right? And normally you would say, well, you know, once Rick Steves is no longer part of the equation, there's no business.

1:19:28But I mean, Rick Steves is like Frommer's or Lonely Planet, right? It's you, but it's something else too. I mean, what's interesting to me about your business is that it can survive without the person Rick Steves. Yeah. You know, I've wanted to get to the point where the business could survive without me. And I think we're at the point now, and I'm really happy about that, that we've got a team where the company is viable without me. On the other hand, it's a shame when a company is named after a person because then you have other people that should have the potential to be the public face of that company.

1:20:12But it's kind of awkward to say, you know, here's John Doe who is speaking for Rick Steves. It would be nicer if the company was just called Europe through the back door and then John Doe would not be not Rick Steves. But that's not a problem right now because Rick Steves is still having fun being Rick Steves. When you think about the arc of your career and what you've built, the top selling travel books or Rick Steves books,$100 million in revenue at your peak. Like, how much of that success do you attribute to how hard you worked and how much you put into it? And how much do you think had to do with luck?

1:20:59Oh, I think a lot of it is how hard I work. I just, I've dedicated, I've basically, I've, I'm not at all complaining about it, but I've given my life to this business. I always work on Saturday. I work every night till 10 o 'clock. So I'm loving my work, but not everybody can love the work the way they are. I'm blessed to love the work. I believe in what we're doing. I got my name on the cover. And I like to be America's traveling guinea pig. I like to make mistakes, take careful notes, and come home and help people learn from my mistakes rather than their own so they can have a better trip. Earlier in the conversation, you were so candid about your family and your personal life.

1:21:41And I understand you're in a new chapter there as well, that you and your wife had divorced some time ago. I guess it was pretty amicable. But you now have a new partner. I think her name is Shelley, who's actually a Lutheran bishop. And it sounds like even though you're not traveling as much as you normally would, it sounds like you're in a really good place. Yeah, I'm so thankful. And she's been able to introduce me to things that I would have never, ever taken serious. I've got an apron now. I cook. I know how to use the stove. I'm walking dogs. Shelly's got a couple of dogs. And, you know, I would have thought that'd be a deal-breaker for anybody who's going to be my girlfriend.

1:22:26But no, these dogs are a very important part of our life. So it's totally new to me, and it reminds me there's more to life than travel. And I'm really thankful for that. That's Rick Steves, founder and owner of Rick Steves Europe. A few years after we ran this interview, Rick announced that he was about to embark on a very different type of journey. He'd been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had to undergo some serious surgery. Fortunately, he announced just a few months ago that he'd been successfully treated and was ready to return to the road. Rick's been pretty public about his experience, hoping that it will encourage more men to get tested.

1:23:09Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And please sign up for my newsletter at GuyRoz.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner with music composed by Ramtin Erablui. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, JC Howard, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, Casey Herman, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Andrea Bruce, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. Thank you.

1:24:12Thank you.

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