833 Americans in Europe; Venetian Lagoon

18:50Rick Steves:And a good part of our society, when they get in trouble, they can't afford health insurance, so they go to the emergency room. Jim, in Germany, what's the health care situation? Very similar. I mean, if you crunch the numbers, they're probably a little different, but the whole concept is pretty much similar, I would say. And except for what Tim was saying, you know, you go to a doctor and they say, well, see if you can fight through it. Whereas in Germany, you I mean, my wife will take our kids to the doctor if they have the sniffles like a little cold. Where my response growing up as American was like, we'll just give them some Tylenol for kids and then we'll see how they do it.

19:21But it's there. It's the culture of going to the doctor, knowing that it's always available to them. It's just ingrained in the German mindset. And what I like about it, too, is that everybody pays according to what they are able to pay. So the wealthier people pay more for health care, just like people who don't make so much pay less for health care.

19:40Rick Steves:Because they're paying it out of their taxes, and the taxes are progressive, not regressive. Exactly right. And that's a fundamental thing. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with three Americans who have resettled and are making their lives in Europe. Tim Tendik, Amanda Buttinger, and Jim McDonough. Tim lives in Rotterdam, Jim lives in Berlin, and Amanda lives in Madrid. And we have links to the guests that are on our show today in the notes for this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. What I'd like to kind of get a sense from you guys is you do pay more taxes than Americans do, but when all the dust settles, you do the arithmetic and you get something for your taxes.

20:19Rick Steves:It's just a decision. This is done more efficiently and equitably as a community. But when all is said and done, I'm curious, do you feel like you're paying more taxes or do you feel like you're just dividing up what is collectively paid for and what's individually paid for, Tim? I feel like I end up paying less for the services in the Netherlands, but that is based on an assumption of trust in government of how they spend it. So if I have enough trust that they're making good decisions, then I feel like I'm benefiting from paying the high taxes because I just pay them, they pay less for it. Kind of like taking a tour, right?

20:53The tour company secures you better rates on your hotels and things. So if you have confidence that they're not squeezing you or grafting a little bit, then you feel good about paying a bunch up front and they disperse it better. That's a good analogy.

21:05Rick Steves:Amanda, what is the take on are we paying more taxes or is it just a good value and a different way to cover the bases? I feel like I might have a different perspective than most of the local Spanish people because I reflect on America and what health care is like here and how stressful it is if you don't have good health care with your job. Then what are you going to do? Am I going to change jobs just to get the better health care? And so I kind of have that perspective. And I will sit in a waiting room and be delighted. You know, people are fussing and I have to wait an hour and a half. And I'm like, oh, this is so wonderful.

21:37I get to sit here and I'm going to get care. So I think I have a very different perspective.

21:43Rick Steves:You're the citizen that appreciates the realities, I think. Yes, and it is strained. There are problems with it and things happening that it's getting weaker. However, it's just I'm delighted to have it. And, of course, you know, June comes and they pull out all that money from your bank account and you go, oh, it hurts. The taxes are heavy. And in that moment, you feel like you don't want to pay at all. But then, of course, then you go into the waiting rooms and you go and have your kids see doctors. Jim, if you do add it up, you get that tax bill, what are the things that an American would assume is going to come out of their pocket outside of taxes that is covered by the government because you pay more taxes?

22:19It really comes down to the fact that I feel as though I get a lot out of it. And I feel that on a regular basis. The kids, for example, when they were in daycare, we didn't pay a nickel for daycare because the state covered it. But that, of course, was a Berlin thing. That's up to each individual state. But that's a big deal in France is child care is covered.

22:37Rick Steves:Health care is covered. What are other things that would be covered? I mean, just the cleanliness of the cities. That's one of the remarks I get from my tour members. It's so clean here. It's so clean. The train systems are, you know, subsidized by the state. The transportation systems in the cities. Oh, my gosh, we can get from here to here and don't have to think about it. And old age security, social security is? Well, it's a little bit weak on that end. It's weak. So you get a small amount. And it's hard, you know, these days with inflation to live on that small amount. So most people should be doing something savings on the side.

23:13Rick Steves:Yes. However, this is a new, relatively new practice of people investing, banks offering investment plans and retirement packages. It's kind of the reality that you don't have so many young people now subsidizing the old people because your society has a demographic situation created by its own success. People are better educated and healthier so they live longer and they have fewer kids. That means there's less working people to pay for the others. Jim, any more ideas from the German system about the attitude? Does a politician get elected by promising less taxes? No, not at all. For the most part, it is a matter of how you're going to use the services that are offered, that are guaranteed through the taxes.

23:56And for some of these, with child care, for example, it doesn't apply to anybody, But there is somewhere else out there that is being guaranteed that might apply to them. For example, if you have sleep apnea, for example, you don't have to spend thousands on one of these CPAP machines because the insurance covers it. You pay a small copay. Or if you're a diabetic, you know, you get your prescription medication highly subsidized. So even though that if there aren't some of those issues that politicians say, well, we need more money for, at least down the road, you'll find some sort of issue that you are benefiting from through the high taxes.

24:30Rick Steves:Moving a little way from that, but I'm interested in sort of the policy, for instance, about paternity leave, paid paternity leave. A lot of Americans are astounded by this. But, I mean, if you go to Denmark or Norway or Sweden, you find a traffic jam of young dads with their strollers at the coffee shop because the dads get paid leave. And it's use it or lose it. So they all get six months paid off and they have a great time getting to know their kid and being good dads. And the employers just have to deal with that. Americans in Europe. That's our topic right now on Travel with Rick Steves. We're hearing what it's like to relocate and live full-time overseas and how your expectations change by living in a different type of society.

25:11Rick Steves:Our guests are Tim Tendik, living in Rotterdam for the last few years, Amanda Buttinger, a Madreleña, living in Spain's capital city now since 1998, and Jim McDonough is a Berliner for going on 20 years. You guys, we've just got a couple more minutes, and I'd just like to very quickly touch on a few more things. What's the attitude about driving? Does everybody drive or what's the thinking? Jim? In a big city like Berlin, no, it would be ridiculous to have a car. Whereas my in-laws, when they live more in a rural part of Germany, then they have to have a car to get from point A to point B. Don't you get a pass for the whole country, trains and buses, and all the cities for a few bucks?

25:49Right. So for 58 euros a month, you get what's called the Germany ticket, and that allows you to use all means of public transport throughout the country. It's a wide drive, huh? Yeah. Exactly. So driving, this is actually interesting with the current event that's happening now is the housing crisis. In a big city, you don't need a car. Obviously, you have all the metros and buses and everything. But now the big cities, people have to leave and move further and further away. And the culture of commuting is becoming more and more popular because they're finding little towns outside the big cities and then driving into their jobs.

26:20Rick Steves:I just love talking with you guys about all this. It's just like I could talk forever. We have these images. Germany is so structured. Spain is so relaxed and having a siesta and a drink and sore paced. Maybe I'm too old-fashioned on that. The Netherlands, you've got such strong community services. I'm sure that Europeans look at each other with little jokes and things. You know, the Dutch get all these uninvited guests coming in from Germany, as they have in the past, and so on. I'm just going to ask you, when a German thinks of a Spaniard or a Netherlands, Jim, what's the attitude? If you look at the people of Spain.

26:54Rick Steves:Be careful. What do you envy or what do you laugh at? Well, when it comes to the Spaniards, it's that they're out all night long and very loud and boisterous. Not a lie. And what about the Dutch? And for the Dutch, they really embrace the countryside. They're very rural. They like the cheese and they really enjoy the finer things. Right again. When it comes to the dairy products. Right on. Amanda, what do you think about these Germans and the Dutch? Just a lot more organization. A lot more straight lines is the only thing I can think of. Straight lines. So there's sort of a, in Italy, they call it the beautiful chaos, the belly chaos.

27:30Rick Steves:Yes, yes. In Spain, I love the old guys that have these big bellies, and they just say, this is my curve of happiness. Oh, yes. And then they sit and fix the world at a table with a couple of beers. Tim, you've got a Spaniard and a German. And then German. The Dutch love to joke about the German tourists coming to the beach, and they all dig holes and sit in them. They love to joke about that. You look out on the beach, you'll trip over a German. You never know. The Spaniards, they'll joke about if you have five Spaniards sitting around a table, they're all talking at the same time. Also not a lie.

28:04I think there is an envy of your Sobremesa culture of sitting around that table and having that long meal.

28:10Rick Steves:You know, one thing I am so inspired by is the Erasmus program in Europe. Even in tough times, economic times, this European Union-funded program that subsidizes students and teachers to go to any country in the EU and study and work. And they feel like that's a practical investment. What's your take as European taxpayers on the Erasmus program? I love that one, and I feel like it does tie to Rotterdam because he's Erasmus of Rotterdam. And I find that it fits so well because Rotterdam being a port city that was so inextricably linked with the global perspective, to name it after a Rotterdamer is just perfect.

28:47That's great. Because to me, you know, the Netherlands being one of the founding members of the EU and this idea of I'm free if you're free, I'm safe if you're safe, this kind of we keep our sovereignty but we work together, I think the Erasmus program is a key part of that because the students in that, they're still from their country. They go home and all that. But because they've lived in each other's countries, they also have a sense of European-ness. And I love that. I find it crucial. It's a huge university in Rotterdam. and they're fun. They have every language. Trivia night in the pubs is multilingual and fantastic.

29:19Rick Steves:You know, we've done a beautiful job of not bringing this home to the pickle that America's in right now with our government and its attitude to the other 96 % of humanity. But right there, that whole spirit of the Erasmus program with an enlightened citizenry that realized that's a good investment for your own security, wow, because that is just diametrically opposed to people that want to build walls instead of bridges. I'll never forget with my TV crew going to a university fraternity house in Coimbra in Portugal, thinking I'd see a bunch of young Portuguese kids. And there was like 20 % of the people were Portuguese.

29:52Rick Steves:80 % were from all over Europe. It was a different kind of party. It's a European party. Amanda, what about Erasmus? Well, I'm on the cut. My young son is 16 on the cusp of deciding, you know, should I go abroad or should I go to France? Should I do Erasmus or what my plan is going to be? And myself coming from having gone abroad to study abroad. And everyone I talk to, I don't even know that it was a debate of should we not do this. It's just something that happens. Get to know the family. Okay, we're out of time. I just want to finish. I'll let each of you say if you had to go back to the United States tomorrow for some reason, you couldn't live in Europe, what would be the biggest adjustment for you?

30:29Rick Steves:Jim? I would say I'd have to really embrace driving again. Driving. All right. Amanda? The timetables, because I'm totally shifted to the Spanish a little bit later, lunches later, bedtimes. Kids running around at 11 p.m. Kids running around, the social environment of being all together. Yeah. I think for me it would be getting back in the habit of being really careful what I said to strangers, because the Dutch, they love disagreeing. They say, I think you're a complete moron, but we're still friends. I love that. I've experienced that. It's frankness, isn't it? Absolutely. They say, be direct.

31:06We can think each other are idiots, and we're still going to sit here and have a beer and enjoy the sunshine, even on a freezing day.

31:11Rick Steves:I was with a Dutchman all day long, a tour guide, that was very smart, but we had a tough time making small talk. And he told me, you know, Rick, you don't need to worry about the silence. I don't need to talk all the time, and neither do you. It was very Dutch. Very straightforward. You guys, I have enjoyed every minute of this. Thank you so much. Best wishes in your chosen lives. Talk about freedom to choose where you want to live. Happy travels. Thank you. Best wishes. Thank you. The beautifully decrepit cityscape of Venice was built on about 100 islands, and its romantic atmosphere may make you want to sigh.

31:45Rick Steves:Then again, sometimes the summertime crowds might make you want to scream. We'll look at popular options and a few lesser-known ones for getting offshore to explore the islands of the Venetian Lagoon. That's next on Travel with Rick Steves. The great city of Venice was for centuries the hub of a vast trading empire in a European superpower. It was founded as Rome was falling in the middle of a vast lagoon. The idea driving its first inhabitants was to escape the chaos of the power vacuum created by the end of the ancient Roman Empire. But today, Venice doesn't escape the chaos of modern tourism at all.

32:23Rick Steves:It attracts it. And a challenge for travelers is to see Venice, but to get away from those touristic mob scenes that plague so many travelers' experiences in Europe's most popular destinations these days. In Venice, a great way to do that is to head for the lagoon, and that's just what I did on my recent vacation. My guide was Igor Scamparin, and Igor joins us today to share with us the sightseeing wonders of that often-overlooked pristine wetland that surrounds Venice. Igor, thanks for joining us. It's always my pleasure to be with you. Thank you, Rick, for calling me again. Oh, well, we had a lot of fun together.

33:05Rick Steves:I know part of your work as a tour guide is to help travelers get away from the city of Venice and to explore the lagoon and the Veneto, the mainland near Venice that really was ruled by Venice so long and has a Venetian heritage. And we're going to talk about the lagoon for a few minutes with you. And how is the Venice Lagoon unique in the Mediterranean? Can you describe the lagoon, please? The lagoon of Venice is very, very unique and everything is changing in a very interesting way. And so we're starting to have 10 ,000 flamingos in the Venetian lagoon. We're having mahi mahi that are joining the Venetian lagoon.

33:46We're having a little problem with blue crabs that are overeating the local species and the local breeds that we got in the lagoon. Well, I say definitely get what is exactly the lagoon. It's a very restricted area. And think about that. If you sail from the southern part of the Venetian lagoon, like Chioggia, all the way up to the northern part of the lagoon, you need something like anything between four, five, six hours. It's very quiet, lovely and relaxing, especially once that you go out of Venice, Lido, Burano and Murano and those areas, especially ones that you get into San Terrasmo, Mazzorbo, and those minor islands, or even in San Francesco del Deserto.

34:32Rick Steves:Now, when we think of the lagoon, this has shaped the world of the Venetians for a thousand years. Venice has had to live with the water for centuries. How is Venice part of the ecosystem of the lagoon? Think about that. You're right. We've got plenty of islands. We've got approximately 180 islands that they form the Venetian Lagoon. And Venice is 120 islands linked together by more than 400 bridges, 150 canals, actually. And so what is part of the ecosystem? And so it's part of our life because the Venetians love the lagoon. And that's exactly when we got a few minutes off, we go to the beach using our boats and then joining areas like hideaway beaches that you can reach only by boat where you bring the kids and the dogs.

35:38and it's a totally different idea of the Lido, basically. And the beach is called Baccan.

35:45Rick Steves:So there's kind of a parallel world, and I always get this when I talk to my friends in Venice. If you have a boat, and I think there are more people on boats than cars in Venice, quite obviously, you have access to that parallel world that the tourists do not go to. They don't know about it and they can't really get there on the public boat service. But if you have your own boat, you can get to those remote spots and those beaches and so on. Earlier, you mentioned all these flamingos and a change in the sort of, you know, balance in the wildlife of the lagoon, the fish and so on. Is that related to climate change?

36:21I would say so, actually. And so in the last few years, we are having more high tide days. Last year, we ended up with 58 days, extremely high tide days. And two years ago, the situation went very interesting because we ended up having short of water. We had a few inches of water in the northern part of the Venetian Lagoon. And we started to see a few things that were sticking out of the lagoon. And we found an oyster farm dated back to 2 ,000 years ago, attached to a Roman villa. And that has been very, very exciting. And right now, all those kind of things, they are inside of the Nature History Museum in Venice.

37:05Rick Steves:A 2 ,000-year-old ancient Roman oyster farm. That just opens up all sorts of ideas. The Romans were there before Venice was there farming oysters. You know, when I'm in the lagoon, I was just with you going to Burano, and we saw a dredging boat that was dredging the canals. and you see all the buoys marking where the dredged areas are. So as you mentioned, it takes three or four hours to go from the north to the south of the lagoon on a boat, and it's a vast body of water, but you can walk across most of it without getting your head wet, and there are certain canals that are dredged deeply, and you see these dredgers to this day marked with the buoys.

37:48Rick Steves:Talk a little bit about how navigation is organized through man-made canals within the lagoon. And so we got a system of a crisscross of canals that pretty much every four or five years we got special barges that they got like cranes or they got excavators that they make the canals way much deeper. We do it either in the lagoon and think about when we had the lockdown part of the canal that was linking Venice to the Venice airport. It was pretty much full of land, sand and dirt. And so we had more barrages and more excavators, actually, that they were dredging the canals to make those deeper. But basically, we started to do a serious situation in the 60s.

38:41And so in the 60s, we started to dredge deeply all the canals and make everything nice and tidy and smell-free, too.

38:50Rick Steves:Igor Skanperin is our guide to what you can find on the islands of the Venice Lagoon right now on Travel with Rick Steves. Igor is a lifelong resident of the region, and his tour options for Venice, off the beaten path, include exploring its wetlands and lagoon and the adjacent mainland area known as the Veneto. His website is tourleadervenice.com. Igor tells us more about the historic cemetery island of San Michele in an extra from today's interview. You can hear that with this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. So we're talking about the lagoon, and the tourists, we all know Torcello, we know Murano, and Burano.

39:30Rick Steves:Torcello is the home of the, kind of like the birthplace of Venice where the oldest church is. It's uninhabited now because of a mosquito and malaria and that sort of thing, but it's a ghostly, beautiful, very old place, easy to visit. Murano is famous for the glass and the glassblowing, and the glassblowing industry was moved away from Venice because the big fires would put out sparks and they would burn entire districts of Venice, so they legally made it only okay to make glass on this island, and to cut down the fire risk of blowing glass on the main island. That's Murano. And Burano is famous for its pastel fishing village kind of ambiance and its lace making.

40:14Rick Steves:What can you tell me about those three islands just briefly before we get into the less touristy places? Talking about Murano, the situation is getting very interesting because we went from 260 glassblowing factories and now we're around 60 of them and five of them are the major one and unfortunately we're having less and less kids young so that they want to continue the tradition which is a big shame in Murano at this specific moment we got approximately 5 ,000 people that live there Burano there are around 2 ,000 people and it's just the paradise for the photographer is just phenomenal and of course is very renowned for the Leis is very renowned for the best gondoliers of Venice and they are very renowned actually for the fish so the best I didn't realize that the gondoliers historically the good ones came from the village of Burano and you were talking about this sad development where the younger generation doesn't want to do what their fathers did and that is hurting the glassblowing industry.

41:23Rick Steves:And in Burano, I would imagine it's also hurting the handmade lace industry. It's totally correct. We are having a bunch of girls that are in the 20s, 20, 25 years old that they do lace making. But it's not that easy, actually. New generations, they want everything for yesterday or right now. It's just not. And lace making is very slow and tedious. Oh, see. I remember earlier, you know, 20 years ago visiting, and there were a lot of people hand-making lace, and now that's just a casualty of our modern time. Hey, Igor, I really enjoyed being with you and exploring some of the less touristy corners of the lagoon, and you took me to an island called Mazzorbo.

42:10Rick Steves:The great thing about Mazzorbo is you can reach that with the public vaporetto, like the floating bus. The vaporetto is just like there's bus 1 and bus 2 and bus 3 or whatever. It goes to all different places in Venice and around the lagoon, and with the public bus, you can anybody. You don't need a private guide. You don't need a taxi boat. You can go to Torcello. You can go to Murano. You can go to Burano, and you can get off the boat at a stop in Mozzorbo, which is more like a park. It's got old historic churches. It's got beautiful gardens. It's got vineyards, and it's got a wooden bridge that you can walk from the uninhabited park-like island with no tourist crowds at all, and like little farmhouses and pastel buildings, you walk over the wooden bridge and you get then to Burano and then you have all the touristic stuff and the lace making and so on.

42:59Rick Steves:Tell us a little more about Mozzorbo. Yes, you figure it out. We are extremely lucky that we've got these little pearls that are right in the middle of the lagoon, that there's literally nobody. We were the only ones. Me, you, and Shelly. We were the only ones. A couple of cats, a couple of dogs, a bunch of birds tweeting and nothing else. So a super special treat. But basically, if you're getting off in Mazzorbo, you're going to have a blast, a super big surprise because it's just phenomenal. Because you're going to see all the vegetable gardens. You're going to see the pomegranate trees. You're going to see the artichokes.

43:35You're going to see the lovely church of Santa Caterina. and the entire idea is if you are fed up of those 30 million visitors in Venice in a place that is twice as big as Central Park, if you need to calm down, Mazzorbo is perfect, especially once that you're walking through this incredible vineyard that is something like 400 years that we are producing the wine from a grape that is called Dorona. Doro, it means gold because actually the grape, it looked like gold when it's mature. Even the wine is beautifully gold.

44:16Rick Steves:This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Igor Scamporen. Igor earns his living taking tourists around Venice, its lagoon and the mainland region long ruled by Venice called the Veneto. His company is Tour Leader Venice. The website is simply tourleadervenice.com and Igor is talking with us today about the lagoon, and it's a, you know, you can go to Venice and complain about the crowds, or you can go exploring in the lagoon and get away from those crowds. Igor, there's a couple more stops on the lagoon I'd like to talk about. Tell us about Sant Erasmo. Sant Erasmo, it's a lovely little island that at this specific moment we've got something like 150, 200 people that live there, and if you're getting there during the month of March, April, May, you're going to see the carciofo violetto.

45:12The carciofo is the artichokes and violetto is like purple. We've got a very special artichoke that we grow up over there and remember that the word artichoke is arriving from that island because in Italian we say carciofo but in Venetian we say artichoco that it sounds almost artichoke. And so we gave the word artichoke to the French and artichoke to the German.

45:39Rick Steves:So we can get to San Erasmo by Vaporetto? Si, there's a Vaporetto that is going to go to San Erasmo. And right over there, you can rent a bike. That's so you can go around the island with a bike. There are a bunch of places where you can rent it. And then there's another vineyard that is called Orto, O-R-T-O. and even that wine is very, very interesting because actually it's got like a salted back kick in your palate, especially because having these 50, 58 high tides per year, actually the salt is affecting the wine in your glass, but it's affecting even the tomatoes, the eggplants, and so you don't have to put any kind of extra salt into your vegetables.

46:29Rick Steves:You know, the last dimension of the Lido I want to cover is the Lido. And the Lido, I think that literally means beach. The Lido, you get to by car, and there's lots of hotels, and it just feels like the rest of Italy, frankly. But that's the land barrier between Venice and the open Adriatic Sea. What interest is the Lido for a tourist? So for a tourist, you've got a bunch of interests. You can reach the Lido or with the water bus number one that is going to go from Piazza San Marco to the Lido in 15, 20 minutes. And then, of course, once that you're getting on the other side, you got cars. Or otherwise, you can get a ferry directly in Tronchetto, which is the bus and car terminal.

47:15And right over there, you load your car and you can end up in the Lido in half an hour, 40 minutes. and ones that you're getting on the other side or you drive your car or otherwise you can rent a bike, an e-bike or anything similar. And what's interesting there, for those of you that are interested into movies, remember that by the end of August, the beginning of September, we got the movie festival and you got the red carpet so you can see a bunch of celebrities that they are arriving not with a limo but with a water taxi. So very different. Yeah.

47:49Rick Steves:And then any time of year, if you have children, it's a great place for beaches, I suppose. Absolutely. And so you can stay in the Lido. And so it's more like a family-friendly area. So you can tour in the morning or in the afternoon. It's a Mediterranean beach resort that serves Venice. And you can park your car right at your hotel. So it's a little bit of a connection for some people for Venice. Igor, this has been so great to be able to review with you the wonders of the lagoon. I want to remind people that you can take a day tour of the lagoon by various tour companies. You can hire a private guide who will get a boat taxi and take you around.

48:31Rick Steves:You can hire a taxi on your own, or you can just use the floating city buses called the Vaporetto. There's plenty of ways to see the lagoon, and we've got to remember that as tourists, we're going to the famous touristy places and see the glass blowing and buy some lace or whatever. But for somebody like you who's grown up in the area of the lagoon, the lagoon is a real part of the local scene and the culture. Can we finish our conversation, Igor, please, with you just sharing with us perhaps a childhood memory of the lagoon or something that you've done with your family? Or what does the lagoon mean to you?

49:10To me, the Laguna means mom and dad, family, relatives, childhood, and all these kind of things. I remember when we mom and dad, we went to Burano the first time. I might have been probably five or six years old because we were visiting the father of my mom. That he was a fisherman and a glassblowing master. And so I remember the first time that I saw the leaning tower of Burano, that it was like, oh, my God, he's falling, he's falling. And that was fun, actually. I connect Burano to mom and dad, my childhood, and being together as a family. Of course, in Italy, family, it's important. It always be important.

49:57But I connect with mom and dad, of course.

50:00Rick Steves:Yeah, it's beautiful. Igor Scamparan, thank you so much for joining us, and best wishes with your guiding. Grazie mille. Ciao. Ciao.

50:28Travel with Rick Steves is produced by Tim Tatton with Kazmira Hall and Donna Bardsley at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington. Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court upload the shows to our website. Sheila Gerzoff handles affiliate promotions. Our theme music is by Jerry Frank. Take a look at Rick's list for what to pack in your suitcase and share tips with fellow travelers. It's part of our online travel forum. It's at ricksteves.com. We'll see you next week with more Travel with Rick Steves.

50:59Rick Steves:Hey, Rick Steves here. In 1978, I was a 23-year-old piano teacher dreaming of trekking the fabled Hippie Trail from Istanbul to Kathmandu. With my buddy Gene, we booked the tickets, packed our rucksacks, and set out on the adventure of a lifetime. My new book, On the Hippie Trail, features my journal and vivid photos from that coming-of-age trip. Squeeze into rickshaws, sail the sacred Ganges, and look into the eyes of the virgin goddess as you stow away with me on the legendary hippie trail. My book, On the Hippie Trail, is available wherever books are sold.